The Gray Reality
by Violent Rouge
Summary: Chaos is romanticized and the grime and grit that make up the world hold me together at the seams like tar. I've been burned so good and fell in love with the pain. A true child of mischief and misfortune, I am lost. Will you come find me?
1. Prologue To My Heartless Journey

**Perfect.**

It's a place where people try to mentally live while they've either had their heads stuck in the clouds too long or have never been exposed to the reality that exists all around them. These golden aura'd beings are free from any real guilt that infests the minds of so many others. Their souls are completely washed clean glowing in an off-white shade, free from the stains of moral griminess.

I've always found it kind of sad that they live in a place where only others like them can touch and feel, but some see this as a prison and take immense pride in thrusting the disgusting, rancid truth in their horror-struck faces. I guess it makes them a virgin to the ugliness that is seeped into the pores of every street, in every building, in every person.

Amongst the clouded there is the one and only Will Stronghold, whom will never see the truth that is hidden, just like the majority of Sky High. Being brainwashed since birth that "good will always triumph over evil," most live out their lives as super heroes under the idea that it's the only option available, other than being a "villain." Although I could argue a different moral stand point about who the real villains are.

It's quite pathetic really and is reminiscent of drug induced societies like that portrayed in _Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley. Except their high is natural. It's like working and breathing next to the god damn Brady Bunch.

I've learned that it isn't just the breeding, the mindset, or the possibility of someone spiking the water with trace amount of lithium for a euphoric effect (although the last one is just a mere theory of mine). I've found myself feeling like a separated twin, with that unknown longing and feeling of a partitioned soul, but it's with the rest of the world.

Fully existent physically with loss of communication... stranded in my own dessert. A living, independent reflection in the mirror beating on the glass while the world moves on squirming and pushing on each other like insects. It almost feels like hibernating with my eyes open.

Of course I'm not some anti-social, rage driven asshole under the impression I can do whatever I want. Especially in High School. The eagle eyes of authority watch little shits who think they can just vandalize and violate without any form or idea of what their own surroundings bear to them. One of the few rules I have: know your surroundings. Although taking my own advice hasn't always been my strong point. But hey, who the fuck do you take me for?

. . . But what if there was another option? What if there was another part of Maxville and other major cities, another part of this hyped up power-charged world that was neither black or white, good nor evil? Made up of those who have seen the truth and fight not only against plagues of "society" such as demons, giant robots, and villains, but against real threats that poison and infect the non-super and super lives of many, they are the closest to reality.

These are the real heroes. The unclaimed gods of our planet's underworld. They call themselves "The Gray" and have learned to shift between the world of shadow and mayhem to the sun-warmed place above.

I live in a world of blind hatred and horrifyingly squared people that I'd rather put a bullet in their brain then let them live in such delusional ignorance. On the outside of my body others would see me as a normal teenager super with homework problems and the tendency to bite my nails bloody, but I will pull back the curtain and show you the truth. Let me be the incendiary who lights your world on fire with my words.

My name is Charlie Corbin, Queen of my own personal Limbo and master of vice and addiction, and I am riding the line between stalking the abaddon of Maxville and passing out on my English desk from drinking a third of a gallon of _Shimmy Vodka_ in the girl's bathroom.


	2. He's Such A Bitch

I've never been a part of the popular crowd. Hell, I've never really been a part of any real crowd of friends, but it's not because I'm some angsty little mall-goth who wears too much eyeliner and listens to songs that usually sound the same and consist of the same lyrics rejumbled with slightly different tune all-day or some chic indie prat who has some self obsession issues. Out of which all of the above have tendencies of wearing too much make up and practice narcissism (despite usual lack of hygiene).

Anyway, moving onto an explanation to my randomness of the whole "High School Grouping."

You see, I have some friends, but I have one best friend that I'd never let go of even if I was a leper. We've known each other since we were still small enough to fit inside of large carry-on luggage, the only catch is that no one has a clue and has genuinely given a shit for years. Because this best friend so happens to be Warren Peace.

**WAIT A TICK AND READ ON COMPADRE!**

Most people that know me would seriously ask if I had downed any shrooms if they had ever even heard his name escape my lips. Because five days a week and seven hours a day, he exists in their world. Those golden aura fruitcakes with too much money and not enough sex . . . Ew. Lash. Never mind. That kids a whore, scratch the last one out.

They have him then, but when he leaves . . . it's different.

He's all mine, my best friend. We spend hours fixing his bike, watching Ed Wood worthy science fiction, getting in trouble for sneaking into my house late, dance all night at clubs, absolutely positively everything. For me seven hours a day, five days a week is nothing, I get him all to myself minus the whole "I work for the Chinese Restaurant Slave Master" ordeal and NO just because he's friends with a bitchin' girl like me doesn't mean he gets all soft. That boy has been built like a rock . . . Like a Chevy.

The only time he's ever asked for help from me was for when he was having hella problems at home (which have never been few and far between), then he'd come over and I'd knock him out. Well, not in a painful way.

The genetic gifts so humbly bestowed on me have more pain than privilege. I'm a bi-gifted child with one power that screws me over and one that I've found relatively useless so far, the ability change gravity when climbing or crawling on any surface and the ability to put others to sleep.

The latter has made me shit out of luck because the downside is I can never sleep. I mean it doesn't really affect me other than permanent dark eyes, but I get really bored and if I take any sedatives or antipsychotics for insomnia they make me extremely sluggish and have impaired my better judgment. By the morning I end up excreted them from my body either naturally or from nausea caused by vertigo...Anways...

I know it's bugging you by now with the one question that I can barely explain, 'Why do you avoid each other?'.

Not only is it a close friend, mask thing, but on my part it legitimately has to do with "The Gray." They've been the one thing I could never reveal to Warren even though he lives in a completely different plain, he can never know. Where Warren exists, he's quite conscious of the ignorance that seeps into the pores of the population, but he's so consumed by rage and hatred, that he floats in place where he'd rather not care or admit to anything else around.

I believed that until recently. Homecoming.

Now that he's taking little Stronghold and company under his wing he's been telling me over and over that he's trying to expand and take on something different in life, but it feels like he's just trying to bury who he really is by surrounding himself with those who are golden unlike him and he's burying me in the process.

A couple nights later after lots of thought, we were sitting in the park near my house in an ancient oak when I spoke to him through the darkness with unwanted dry eyes "If you can be seen with them, why not me?" Simple enough, right?

After a few seconds of just knowing his eyebrows were furrowed together I heard him sigh, but after waiting a few moments I slowly turned and looked at him. even in the dark his endless rage held torches in his eyes.

Feeling suffocated by the humidity and heat of the dying days of summer, the proximity and moment became too much. I felt the need to escape like a trapped jaguar. I placed my hands on the solid branch and flung myself off onto the ground, my left knee popping as it always has when stiff. My voice shuddered in the pitch as I looked toward a streetlight a hundred paces away illuminating an empty road, "Acting only works on a crowd, princess."

He didn't say anything as he watched me walk away, but I knew his reply "You should know."

My best friend is a total bitch for giving in to ...all of _this._

At first I just wanted to run. It was like I was the Tinman from _The Wizard of Oz_ and my body was oil-less for most of my life, but what had transpired was definitely a match for my gasoline soak soul and events to come. My muscles burned and ached with every new step and there was a taste in my mouth that had developed from this. I could feel perspiration on my back after a good fifteen minutes of solid sprinting.

It was a way for me to clear my head and breath the city air, and possible one of my more impulsive moments. But when you let someone envelope that much of your life and love, being near them is not on the top of your list of things to do. Running as fast as my body could take me, I didn't stop, not until I began to noticed places that I had been monitoring for "Gray" activity. I kind of had to slow too, my lungs were begging me to stop and sound was obstructed by the mega-pounding of blood in my ears.

Suddenly my foot caught a crack and I dropped to the ground skidding on the paved sidewalk, ripping open my jeans at the knee and scraping my flesh as my upper body fell forward with a soft noise. Copper tastes filled my mouth and I realized that my teeth were biting my lower lip so hard it was punctured and bleeding a little. I felt my own hurt and rage build up inside and then wear me down in waves of discontent. Then slowly I felt my heart even out and my breathing calm.

For some reason, I felt better than ever for running, so I started laughing. I felt as though I fell folly to myself and felt foolish for investing so much into someone who I thought I trusted, who I thought was magnificent and different. In all honestly I was mentally and emotionally overcompensating for the pain. You would think years of being friends would have taught me to read him better.

My eyes were clenched shut and I was laughing hysterically like cackling hyena, so hard in fact that my stomach muscles began to ache. Until I heard a soft voice whisper in my ear like the wind delivering a secret message, "Angels even fall asleep on the watch."

Then I was out like a light. Finally sleeping, but there are no dreams for the wicked. Just the never-ending black.


	3. Creaking Corridors of My Mind

No, I was not falling or spiraling down a metaphorical hole somewhere in my brain. It was just dark, like shutting your eyes or the black on the movie screen when the reel is just warming up. The only difference was that I somehow knew I was asleep and I truly didn't enjoy it. This harsh feeling of being farther out of control than I already was kept nipping at me all night, but this was more of a bitch slap sending me to insanity.

Really, I don't think I'm crazy, but while I pondered in this silent pit it seemed to agitate me that I was hearing voices and sleeping after years of restless nights. Was it "The Gray?" Why come to me? Why now? Did I raise too many eyebrows amongst lower members or some snazzy stuff like that?

Maybe I was becoming so obsessed that really they had no clue of my recent observant ways and I was just hoping way too much. Maybe some serial killer akin to the Zodiac has taken me into a dark cellar somewhere with hopes of spending the next three nights going to town on me with a sautering iron and scalpel. Honestly I had no idea. I was intensely crossing my fingers at the thought of the Gray, and surprisingly it wasn't just because I didn't want to be tortured. So I just sat there thinking about how I became aware and out of the overzealous existence I might be living in.

At the end of my freshman year I was just like any normal (minus being friends with Warren) super-teenager with no sleep and the habit to bitch, but one day I decided that there was too much in the world to ignore. What about normal teens? What do they do? Do they party harder?

These questions plagued me the first month of summer before my sophomore year, so I decided to just relax and go party browsing. First I started by asking my neighbor, Amber Flannigan, if she knew of any good parties. Apparently I had been living next door to the biggest coke addict, which totally surprised me.

I had been on a nice-cause-I'm-your-neighbor-and-the-same-age level since she moved there in seventh grade, but when I started really milking it I realized what an undercover FREAK this girl was. She looked so nice and wholesome and even acted like that to everyone. Dear God, this girl even helped old Mrs. Margarete out every Saturday.

She is the Mistress of schemes and holy hell does that girl party like a rock star. After she hooked me up with tons of people to chill with I was set forever, especially since that was the summer of experimentation. She knew everyone in South District and West Harbor areas ranging from specialist drug dealers, partiers, club owners, and even an arsonist or two.

The skittles I ate weren't chewable and make with fructose. I had my hands on everything that could cause chaos to my body. My respiratory system, liver, pancreas, and heart should have all kicked the crapper in the first month if I didn't lose my mind.

Every time I took a hit or snorted a line I was completely different. I could see the other side of wrong and all the people rolling around in this awesome filth. After a while Warren started getting incredibly worried. Yeah, he'll smoke a cigarillo full of Hydro, but when I start doing ex he couldn't handle me. He disappeared from my life for about a week or two.

Leaving me alone.

It was there in the dirtiest, grungiest warehouse rave where they found me rollin' like there was no tomorrow after popping two heart "candies." My heart was racing and my make up felt like it was dripping off my face slowly like a mask falling apart, but I felt on top of the world despite dance exhaustion and sweat.

Somehow I had found myself on the roof of the warehouse, pink fishnet clad legs dangling about the side of the building from the ledge I sat, when below I heard the most horrific laugh. It was like the Joker and Satan got together and made a merry child, kind of along the lines of "Ho Ho muahaha" without a comical edge and saturated with debauchery and madness. The sound was so electrifying to my ears that it sparked something that had laid dormant my whole life and jump started my system.

My senses were still pretty messed up, but my eyesight seemed to become sharper as I whipped to the disgustingly melodic evil that came from some bastards throat. The first time I looked, it appeared that the shadows were laughing at me, but then what looked to be some punk messing around came out of the solid darkness. His skin was the color of death, so white it was almost neon.

But no, it wasn't his skin that caught my attention it was his beautifully deadly orange eyes and even though he climbed up the fire escape locked with me in an unwavering stare I felt something sick sizzle with the newly awakened sense in my brain. It crackled and popped, until I felt this _urge_ in my head.

Unfortunately, I couldn't move my limbs in the direction I wanted, but instead I stood up and began to stride slowly in a cat like way toward this **thing**. Some reason I could never remember his face, only his eyes. Those off eyes full of malice and true evil.

His warm white hand reached out and stroked my face and in an instant his eyes were black and images of murder, rape, and every vile thing to ever commit were slammed into my head. Things that were _never _mentioned to us, things that completely defied this brainwashed life I was living. Drugs and sex were one thing, but torture and hatred are completely different.

What this creature of the night did was far beyond opening my bright eyes, it was demented and sick. Nameless victims screamed through my head in high pitched shrills that would surely deafen, but it didn't stop there as I watch necrophilia and other disturbing images scar me slicing paper thin layers off my psyche so I may bleed out the old and create something marred in its presence.

Nauseated and on the verge of my own break down, I was ready to give up and pass out, but immediately the hand left my face causing me to collapse into a heap on the dirty roof almost like a marionette with its strings cut. Slowly, my eyes drifted upward to see the creature being fought by what appeared to be a tall man in a tight black military outfit donning a mouthless ski mask and goggles. The sound of others following up the steel shaft from the ground echoed.

Shock waves traveled through my body and I began to go into a seizure like fit. I would have thought this unknown hero would not notice do to the on going passionate fight taking place ten or so feet away, but as my eyes began to roll back into my head I felt someone pick me up and carry me off. After that I couldn't remember much and I somehow think that my memories were tampered with, by a mediocre mental super.

Even though I only remember snippets of that evening, this unknown savior in black spoke words in my head that blurred and faded into nothingness only leaving a feeling of curiosity and extreme want. A want to understand everything and anything, the want that drove me into finding the true meaning of what exists.

I thought, I would never completely understand until I was accepted and embraced. I needed answers.


	4. Really Now?

Going back to the beginning was always said to help solve problems, instead I just wasted time by remembering a night that's not even completely pulled together inside my jumbled mind. Torn between boredom and hating to admit I never truly solve any of my problems, I felt this tug on my physical hand.

This was extremely odd considering I was supposed to be sleeping, but this warm pull on my hand was extremely hard to ignore. Little wet droplets soon followed and I couldn't help, but realize I was slowly gaining consciousness. Tears? Snot? Rain? I had no clue what this foreign substance was, but I was damned if I'd be stuck in this mental pit of hell.

Focusing as hard as possible, I tried wiggling my fingers like that chick in Kill Bill, but to my disappointment I'm apparently not that cool and chanting _'Wiggle your left middle finger'_ won't get anyone, anywhere. Maybe if I'm loud enough I could cause a grumbled to escape my throat or a huff of some kind. There has to be someone there and what the hell is this liquid on my hand? You can't just avoid someone laying in the effin sidewalk. If I was even on the sidewalk anymore.

Then I heard it again, that voice, speaking to me with a rougher edge as if they had a cold or cough. Whoever this was, was apparently quite sick. "Charlie? ...Charlie," they began, "You won't regain full consciousness just yet, but . . . Before I take you home and before I must depart with you, there is something I must tell you."

A light bulb flashed above my head and I knew who this was, but at the same time was completely clueless. This was the same person who spoke to me before I passed out and the same exact person from the night I was 'awakened'. It had to be, something faint was being grasped at the back of my mind and I was so sure of the connection.

Again, I felt more droplets on my hand cooling my skin and drying it out in some places. Just above a whisper came this unknown entities voice, low in my ear and something about it struck a chord "Stay away from the Gray. You've seen too much already and we can't allow you to be a risk or else next time you will never wake up . . . It's what's best for you."

Out of the clear blue the most bewildering thing happened that I'm pretty sure isn't supposed to happen, I projected my thoughts through the darkness and out of my mouth. In a dry, hoarse whisper I replied "You'll never know what's best for me." For once I knew I wasn't delusional because I heard breath being tightly sucked in through his teeth.

Lightly, I felt a smooth finger run across my left cheekbone "There exist worse things in this world that would swallow your pretty soul in heartbeat . . . ," his voice hesitated for a second, "And some that would play with you first."

I knew exactly what he meant by it was all I could think as those horrendous acts began to try an resurface through the darkness surrounding my mind.

Again my voice crept out of my crackled throat, "Who would want to do that to little ol' me?"

A deep sigh came from his chest added by a slight cough, "Sleep" was all he said, then I was cut off again. No outside sounds or feelings, just the insanity of being a prisoner of your own body. Much like botulism poisoning only I haven't had anything to eat and this situation can hardly let me point the finger at something more average. Well, as average as it will become for me.

I don't know how it happened, but one minute I was basking in madness, the next I was laying on my bed with wide eyes staring at my off-white ceiling giving thought to the possibility of dreaming. It left me bewildered and praying for the _Twilight Zone_. Everything in my body felt old and ancient as if it hadn't been used in years. So sliding off my bed, I stretched my legs a bit on the ground, stood, and headed down stairs to face my family.

This was going to be tough getting an excuse going for them, let alone my friends later. How long had I been gone? A day? A week? I know they can handle a day or two of non-me action, but what if I had been gone longer than I hoped?

Taking the last step down the staircase I looked around, it was night time, but my house was dead silent . . . or at least I thought it was. As I rounded the corner to my kitchen, I heard small choking sobs as if someone was suppressing a really ugly cry, but what I saw puzzled me beyond anything.

My mother was crammed into the neck of my father, who had a supporting arm draped around her tightly, and was crying her eyes out. For what seemed like forever, I just sat there watching them suffer almost silently in the small kitchen for reasons then unknown to me. Taking another step forward out of the gloom, my father raised his head from its downward position, looked at me, and went completely rigid.

"Charlie . . . ," he began his voice holding a tone of disbelief, "Charlie? Is that you?" Slowly my mother raised her head like a hurt dog and gazed at me with complete shock, but within seconds was detached herself from my equally shocked father and flung herself onto me, almost knocking me backward.

This time she sobbed even harder and went into full on ugly-cry mode, trying to string together words while my completely still father sat there staring. Her flailing arms whacked me in the head as she pounced and hung on me like a viper. It was extremely awkward and I was trying to understand what was happening when something out of her mouth made sense. Well it was a little hard to not understand since she sort of shrieked it into my ear, which startled me and my father.

"FOUR WEEKS!"

Two words? That's helpful.


	5. All Over The Place

It seems that no matter where I seem to tumble in life a dark, cold halo of misfortune hovers above and blows me completely out of the water when the rapid tides of life seem to mellow. Maybe that's a little much, but it's pretty much like that in almost all of my situations.

Here I am, at a loss of words, being gripped tightly by my sobbing hysterical mother who keeps chanting in a banshee's screech, shaking her head from side to side while her graying hair falling out of its loose bun. Had I really been gone that long? Four weeks of pitch black, a prisoner to my own body in a cell of no taste or feeling. I couldn't even comprehend how it was possible, let alone what kind of power needed to pull that off.

" Charlie . . . my only baby girl . . . Charlie. Oh Charlie! Is it really you?"

Mechanically my hands reached up to my mother's shoulders and roughly gripped her, popping my fingers slightly, as I pulled her away to look into her red puffy eyes. My mouth hung as slack as it could over subconsciously clenched teeth at her over dramatic display. It was known to everyone I was treated as a ghost in my own home on the norm. I didn't bother them, they occasionally bothered me. I paid my own way. Although it did seem that my paternal parental unit cared more, we still held a silent agreement.

At first I just opened my mouth and closed it a few times, but finally words escaped my parched throat with a hollow distant voice quite unlike my own. " Hhh-how l-long," I had to stop and cough slightly, "How long . . . have I been gone?"

Staring intently at her face, she began to slowly regain something closely to normal breathing and replied finally "It's been two months for you . . . "

Wait . . . _For me?_

Looking up at my father with questioning eyes, I was completely shocked to see the bitterness in which his face seemed submerged. His head lifted so I could see his lips moved with words in monotone, but his eyes stayed stone cold along with the rest of his face, "They took Cory, four weeks ago. They took your little brother!"

Then he plunged his head back down, shaking silently with quiet tears, while my mother began to start up again as well. Whaling and squealing perfectly.

For two months I had been missing and I reawaken to a torrential down pour of chaos and panic. I didn't know how to react or deal with it. So very like the good carpenter I am, I put up another wall to cope. A wall to absorb the information safely without somehow imploding like my mother seems to think.

Why would anyone take Cory? There was a possibility that it was a pedophile or drug mules, the later is on the more than likely side with this city. The only thing that was apparent was that my parents assumed he went wherever I did and sadly I knew that was how it worked it in their world, it was always some super villain out for revenge, but not in mine.

Out of the little information I held about "The Gray," I knew they wouldn't do that unless he was a threat and a little nine-year-old boy is no threat. If it was by chance, a villain that did exist in their world there should have been something left behind or delivered to taunt my family, but if it wasn't and it existed through true hatred than after four weeks I can only expect the worse.

I can't help but to wonder what it must feel like for them to understand just how out of control they are to the events around them, to know that no matter how much power they posses they will never fully be in control . . . Unless they are in denial and that is likely.

"How did it happen? Is there anything . . . anything at all that helps us know where he might be?"

"Four weeks ago, at around dusk, Cory was told to take a casserole to old Mrs. Margaret after her hip surgery," I felt something nasty in my stomach begin to build, "But as he crossed the street your mother heard him screaming and raced outside to see him being thrown onto the back of a motorbike between two people."

The feeling was there building like a volcano, I knew what it was, but I was trying to deny it. Selfishness.

"Didn't you want to call the cops or something?"

Slowly my mother turned to look at me with an infuriated expression, "Call the cops? You think . . . We should have called the COPS! We're out there doing their job most of the time! WHY THE HELL WOULD WE CALL THE COPS!" Definitely denial.

"Just a suggestion," I squeaked out right before I felt a hand lay into the side of my face at full force, cutting my cheekbone where her wedding ring was. I knew I totally deserved it, but I couldn't help but to hate her more than ever, because in the back of my mind, she never tried hard enough. So I let my feelings of selfishness rise above it all and spew outward.

"Yes! You totally had it under control when you lost your first child! RIGHT! You totally had it under control when you went on living your lives! RIGHT! So why CAN'T you have someone help on SOMETHING just for once!" I couldn't stop there I had to keep going as I began to back her into the kitchen corner, "Who was out looking for ME! Why can't you just GET THE HELL off your high and mighty stool and realize that you've NEVER had it under control and you NEVER WILL until you accept help dammit!"

By then I had my face two inches away from hers and I was seriously debating on whether or not to spit on her over dramatic tear stained face, but concluded that it would add insult to injury and make me just as bad if not worse than her. My father's voice stopped me when he mentioned the one person who I never wanted involved in the other parts of my life.

"Warren has been looking for you. We haven't spoken since he came back from searching for you to be updated on your little brother, "he paused, "He checks in once a week on a blocked number we can't trace."

Oh great, that's all I need. Warren trying to save his own pride by helping my family. It seems the 'All American Dream Boy' is brainwashing him. If I ever see him again, he's going to have my foot jammed so far up his ass he'll be walking around with a colostomy bag the rest of his life.

Moving across from me and my mother, my father opened a little mahogany cabinet door beneath the counter and pulled a small box out about the size of a cheap Easter basket handle-absent. Backing away a little, I moved toward him with a curious expression and gently took the box out of his old trembling hands and sat down on the floor from where I stood, my frame slightly hunching over.

Lifting open the cardboard flaps I found it was exactly what I hoped it to be, the only finger pointing in the right direction.

Inside were three items, first of which of was a letter addressed to me with a shredded envelope no doubt due to someone's quick tearing (i.e. my mother). The letter itself was not a letter really, more of a blank gray greeting card which at first would definitely signal activity from my favorite underground group, but something else caught my eye as I turned it over. Imperceptibly printed numbers only a shade or two lighter than the base color placed into the lower right hand corner near the crease of the spine followed by a perfectly shape lion.

'Note to self, copy numbers.' I thought as I began to move to the next item.

Setting the card on the floor beside me I turned to the box again and pulled out a small collapsible asp that, when extended, reaches out about a foot or so. Now that is quite mind boggling. An asp? Isn't that what police officers and security guards carry when on duty? Curiosity got the best of me and I dropped the asp quickly and peered into the box at the last object.

A simple necklace chain similar to those used with army tags, held a single silver ring. On the outside of the ring there were two crosses on either side of what appeared to be the burning heart usually associated with Catholicism. When I peered on the inside of the ring, another thing completely threw me off, foreign writing inscripted all the way around the band.

"We didn't know what they were," my mother rasped out, "There were other things inside, but Warren came back and took them."

That's just like him. I'm stuck here with the hard clues, dirty bastard. Shaking my head with a slightly bitter chuckle, I slipped the necklace on then grabbed the asp and card. Ready or not, here I come.


	6. Suck It Up

Grunting slightly, I stood and walked toward the kitchen door leading out into our overcrowded garage filled with ancient materials pre-my birth and broken Christmas lights , but stopped before I could reach the door and turned to my father with determination burning a hole straight through his face. His features were yet again set in a hard, statue- esque expression which wasn't really an expression at all, " I'm going. Keys."

Of course my mother was having troubles with this. She's a mother whom has been suffering from the loss of two children, one of which has come home and completely disrespected her beyond belief, but I still see it as trying to knock sense into her. It's not that she's stupid, just always relied on her version of the world. My only worry is she won't pull herself out of the rabbit hole if you catch my drift.

Because it can't be any more apparent that she is in fact **not** on Xannex.

The aged old hands of my father jingled as he pulled the car keys out of his khaki pockets and held them out to me, but when I went to take them he looked at me with a sharp deadly glance and spoke in a low voice, " Don't come back until you have something."

Jerking the keys out of his hands quickly, I turned my back indifferently and headed into the depths of the darkened garage, closing the door behind me quietly. Somehow my hand found the light switch on the wall and I turned it on to reveal the family van which looked more like something found at the police impound. A white unmarked, fuel hog scratched up from years of abuse stared at me, taunting with its wide frame.

The only up-side I could ever find about superhero work is that they always had cool digs, but our family insisted on civilian lifestyle in the one category that I could do without. Why can't I have a jetpack or flying bicycle? Even the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car would do, just hopefully I won't end up in a land where children are enslaved under some huge castle by some fat asshole. I don't know how that didn't give all the other children nightmares. It made me stop liking candy for most of my childhood in fear of being lured in by some child catching freak.

Climbing into the driver's seat I inhaled the aroma of the van which had, to my disappointment, gone stale. Before it had always reeked of a flowery mixture and Chinese food, but I see now that it's been a while since anyone had even touched the car let alone sat in it. Plus there was a thin layer of dust settled upon the dashboard and other areas. They must have been using our 95' Toyota Camry, which I later found to be sitting on the curb outside.

Hitting the garage door button and starting the ignition, I was still debating where I was heading first. To Warren's house to speak with his mother, he most definitely wouldn't be there trust me, or to retrace my stalking of the Gray and all the places where there has been activity or interaction with me or others. Quick and painless(as a cobra bite) versus thorough and vigorous.

One thing was definite for sure, even though I was told to stay away they knew I wasn't going to and they probably knew I knew they knew. If that made any sense at all. The Gray was probably the only key I had to finding Warren or my brother, but in Warren's case I'll probably just beat the living tar out of him for being so cocky as to try and pull some "I'm the hero" shit.

Even though he was once my only real, true friend he can disappear with the rest of the real victims in the world for all I care because he made his decision. When he refused an answer he showed what really was existing inside of him, stupidity and selfishness. Of course he didn't plant the seed of bullshit in his soul, but he helped water it and he let it change him from the flexible vine to the common weed.

Okay, enough of the plant comparisons. Bottom line is he changed for the sake of wanting to be someone else. Yeah, it's great to pretend and act out, but it dies when he throws away years of friendship to be a part of the _All American Social Whoring League_ run by red, white and blue boy.

Thinking about this began to give me an ache in my head and chest. One from frustration, the other from true hurt. This sealed my decision. I would definitely go to see his mother, even though there is a lack of communication between him and her, there has got to be something she knows that I don't. Looking at the portrayal of her personality over the years I found that her witnessing must outweigh her insanity.

If I find Warren, no matter how much I'm starting to hate him, he'll have more of a lead on my brother than I do at this moment. Then it's off to harassing the only people who understand secrets beyond the everyday surface. If harassment is what it is. Let's face it. I'm ballsy, but they're the top of the fucking food chain.

Turning into their driveway, I noticed Warren's black SUV was gone just like I expected it to be. Was I getting my hopes up this early? Jeez. That's what being clean will do to you. Make you all normal and stuff. Or is it delusional. Either way I'm screwed.

Cutting the engine, I began rummaging through the huge crate between the passenger and driver's seat that we used as a center console and came across my back up lighter and an almost empty pack of Djarum Black's. Setting the cig between my lips, I lit it and took a long drag that sizzled and cracked the cloves within the black paper and released a deep smell of incense.

There was a familiar burn that I hadn't felt since I began smoking, but it quickly faded. I struck it down to probably not being able to suck on any cancer sticks for quite some time. By this point in my life, I knew my lungs were black like charcoal, but I don't care. Currently I'm still wondering what to say and how Mrs. Peace will react to finding me at her doorstep.

Finishing off the last drag I flicked the stub out the window and exited my car, silently closing the door. My legs still felt a little cramped, so it felt good to walk to her front door, but I still couldn't imagine her reaction. Not only is it the obvious stuff she'll be reacting to, but how the hell do I look? Probably like a zombie.

Oh well, I feel dead.


	7. Choke And Die

As soon as I reached the doorstep, I knew I couldn't truly bring myself to knock. Even after all these years of just walking in like I lived there a heavy ball hung in my stomach like I had swallowed a large nugget of iron and a feeling of trespass hung in the corner of my mind, a nagging reminder of the Peace family's frail structure. After I left, I can only imagine what was uncovered about me and Warren. Whether it was his hatred that ran deeper than his just father or my "rough" lifestyle that would be more than frowned at.

Mrs. Harriet Peace always treated Warren with a strange attitude, almost like indifference as a child, always keeping him at arms length and watching any of his friends with weary eyes, the fear of history repeating itself clawing with her husband's vengeance at her nerves. He was, after all, the spitting image of a terrifying man who even somewhat defied the average villainy of this society. But as I became older as well, she began to look at me like a household appliance preferably a toaster, I was always there without any real emotional attachment to her.

Whenever I had to sit and talk with her it reminded me of old Southern women, always acting polite and gentile around there neighbors, but secretly dropping social bombs about them to others. In her case it was completely unknown to me who she was actually friends with considering she came off as a recluse or a nutter to most of the civilian and super population, but there had to have been someone she didn't push away.

Shaking slightly, my hand was held a few inches away from the handle and I decided on just entering despite her possible enraged face I kept picturing in my mind. So I bit my lip hard and checked the doorknob, finding my guess correct as the knob clicked and the hinges creaked.

'Unlocked just as usual', I couldn't help but think. The only thing slightly understandable she did was leave the front door unlocked and the back latched securely. This was a neighborhood filled with trained professionals that always took things head on.

Even if someone did want to commit something obscene not only would they have their ass kicked nine ways to Sunday, but if they did get away this house was custom made with cameras hidden around the front and back doors. It was something uncommon for a super hero household to need security such as this considering most are completely unaware of real situations, but Harriet Peace had a right to be paranoid, what with the family history and the fear that some villain would take interest in the budding son of the infamous Barron Battle.

Entering as quietly as possible, my heart began to race wildly within my chest as the familiar place and aromas attacked my olfactory sense and raided my mind, raking up memories. As soon as I closed the door behind me, her familiar voice called out causing the hair on my neck to stand on end.

" I knew you'd come eventually. No one else believed me."

Turning my head to my right, I followed her voice into the unusually cold living room that I always remembered as warm and inviting. It now just seemed like an empty shell completely blank and void of any happiness, as if it were an Egyptian tomb dressed and filled with the deceased's valuables in life. I could feel a life half spent wanting and crying scattered around me in the form of cracked photos and stale aromas.

Clearing my throat I stared directly through the darkness at the old dusty love seat where the figure of Harriet Peace sat in her robe, arms and legs crossed tightly.

My voice found a foot-hole and trudge through the tar like air, so thick with heavily mixed emotions. "Where is he? You have to know something."

"I know nothing.", she replied quickly.

"You lie. Tell me what you know."

Her face twitched in the darkness and I knew she was holding out. She replied with a low growl-like voice, "Why would I lie about my own son's whereabouts?"

"You never seemed to care before-"

"How dare you speak to me like that." She had cut me off and was standing now, her figure appearing ominous in the dim glow of the security light that hung outside and she gave off the vibe of a panther about to pounce.

"What is this ploy? Acting like you've always used your maternal instincts. You were never sure if you were supposed to protect or cage your son. Half of his life you just acted like he wasn't even there. I'm sorry, I just can't respect someone who does that."

Again, I could tell I hit another nerve as she moved uncomfortably in her spot ten or so feet away from me. In a locked unwavering glare, I felt her eyes melt through the silence and darkness producing something nasty from the bowls of her emotional soul and spitting it out at me as if she could make me disappear.

Just feeling her there, standing so composed, but trying to kill me with her looks made me realize she'd either never help or she feels incompetent for having less information than me. I couldn't help spitting out, "On the last day that you will ever live, you will have to eat all of your vile words and swallow them whole, each painful accusation or mistreatment will slice your throat like a shard of glass."

I really thought that'd be the end of our verbal battle, but as I turned around to leave that dreary setting her voice rang out one last time cracked with sadness and tears causing me to face her again.

" No matter what you believe, he's not doing it for the glory or for freedom from his-," she cracked and sniffled before speaking again, " From his father's reputation."

My mouth hung open and I went to reply, but was cut off by her distressed voice speaking through tears.

"NO! You're going to listen good. I've always known where he was when he disappeared after fighting with me. I've always known he went to you and for once I'd like to tell you what the hell I really think," she took two steps toward me with clenched fists " I understand everyone thinks I've always been cruel to him, but damn it you better open your eyes and see the trap you set for my son."

Her body was rigid as she took another step toward me, " He's out there not only looking for you and your brother in hopes of regaining whatever kind of sick affection you gave him, but he's trying to satisfy you. HE'S ALWAYS TRIED TO SATISFY YOU! Stealing, lying, and bleeding for your attention. "

Taking two last steps toward me she screamed out with all of her lung and throat power producing a banshee like shriek , " WILL YOU EVER BE SATISFIED?"

Automatically my hand collided with the left side of her face with a loud flesh on flesh noise and she went limp where she stood, staring into the carpet with void eyes. Now I didn't know at all how to deal with her. Anything could send this woman teetering off the edge so I stuck to the basics, "CALM THE FUCK DOWN. "

I couldn't deal with the melodramatic tears she was producing, so I did the one thing I'm good at, leaving. My legs carried me swiftly out the door and to my car. When I was once again driving down the road I became a victim to my own thoughts and I couldn't help but to wonder if I was the one who was cruel...

If maybe she was right.


	8. Documented Pain

As I ponder my cruelty, the only fond memory of my own mother from my childhood that seems to come to my mind and sadly it wasn't even my actual childhood it was when I started "womanhood" in my preteens. I remember the real confusion I was beginning to have as I was finally identifying feelings I had for years and the hurt as I realized that I would have to wait a while before boys would catch up in maturity.

Years later, similar questions scrape across my mind with broken fingernails and layers of disappointment from everything in my life seem to stay in place like soap scum and grime. Always wanting what you can have and never being able to sleep away your misery and pain.

Yes, I was born into this happy go lucky suburban, cookie baking, red white and blue loving community. But that night I didn't choose to see those things and now that I think about it harder, would I still be hooked on drugs? Would I still be searching? Better yet, did I welcome that thing into my head? I was searching for something different and radical from my environment and instead found a living nightmare.

Before all of that, there was still him. Always there, walking along side me as my equal, leaving a trail of destruction behind us and for the longest time I though he was just a magnet for bad luck. It's evident now though that I was the one who always had the rain cloud hovering above myself and he was the guiding light.

Now in his absence, the world crumbles further into darkness and out of all the so-called heroes in this lame world, I have to effing save the day and I not only feel, I know that I'm the most unqualified for this role.

Somewhere inside me a pain is stabbing away at already mutilated flesh and I know my involvement with the Gray has brought this upon everyone. Another thing on the checklist that is most definitely my fault.

----

As I drove to the old warehouse-turned rave central, I rolled through heavy down pour as well as my dark thoughts. Before I went missing, raves were held in Warehouse 4 and 7 in the east downtown district as well as the basement of and abandoned building about ten minutes from there.

From what I had previously collected I knew that a very intense looking character, full name Samuel Dodge nicknamed "Sam the Man," sold anything from weed to heroin in person but actually pushed god knows how much in crates all of the country through separate areas of the warehouses and the abandoned building.

Sam lived in a remodeled and rebuilt upstairs of the abandoned building. It was set up so that it was half apartment, half office area and was intended for him to have easy access to professional business problems associated with his products and any setbacks attached to deals or shipments.

I know this from many cold nights I spent there beside him trying to kill pain.

The owner of both properties has a profit deal with Sam and his equally shady associates, but I can't seem to find this owner's name through any paperwork or connections. People just give me this really crazy look like I just asked for assisted suicide, but the best reaction was when I asked Sam.

Instead of pulling a gun on me like I was expecting or brushing it off with a bad look, he turned to me with an odd look in his eye. It was the look of a knowing man and in an instant his intensity wore through and his face became so blank that he looked like a doll, I knew he was unlike the rest, but this sealed the deal. He looked no more than 27, yet I knew he had seen more than can be seen in a lifetime.

After that, I never talked about it with him in a silent agreement. I'd by some kandi from him and that was that. No direct looks or speech from him. I said what I wanted, gave him the money, got the drugs, and left.

Now, I was ready to break that agreement and I was ready to break my own previous morals to save my brother and come one step closer to Warren. After all of this is over, I know I'll never come back to them, there was never a slot for me to begin with. It will never be my life.

Driving as slow as possible through the twists and turns of the East Warehouse District, I scanned for one of Sam's cars. Looking at the sky I could tell morning was coming and he would be leaving for home soon and if my plan was going correctly, I'd be waiting for him. Quick enough, part in an alley between a meat packing plant and Warehouse 5 was his beloved dark green Ferrari, but as I began to leave something caught my eye.

Warren's black SUV.


	9. Burning Your Coffin

Somehow I've always turned the depressing events in my life into fuel for and undying hatred that began to flare even more since my awakening. It's always been there. I just never fed it the right kind of stuff to make it erupt into a monstrous flame such as the one now consuming me.

I've come to a crossroad and time is running out. Either I could go searching for our dark knight or head over to Sam's place and patiently wait. Time is tick-tocking away and I needed to make up my stubborn mind, but I know I need to make it on my own, without the help of a destructive flame thrower.

Hitting the gas pedal, the van jerked forward a little and I quickly headed over to Sam's place cutting my time in half from subconsciously letting my foot off the gas only when I realized I was pushing the old betty too much. Easing on the brakes just a little bit, the van screeched slightly and I parked her into a garage within walking distance as to not draw too much attention.

Cutting the engine, I grabbed my cigarettes and pushed them into my jacket's inner pocket lightly, as to not crush them, then sprinted toward the back side of the building less than half a block away. Looking around I noticed it still had one usable entrance, a large metal sliding door that would survive even nuclear warfare and can only be opened from the inside.

The building stood about three stories with only two windows on the highest level's back entrance and one large one taking up the front part of the third story. Bricks appeared to be missing or charred, while other parts had vines and kudzu trying to wrap around the whole establishment.

Sticking a cigarette into my mouth, I lit it and took a long drag, then placed my hands onto wall. Suddenly, my body shook and I began to climb upwards to the third story where one of the back windows was surely unlocked. Concentrating, my climb was hard considering I hadn't practiced this in forever, but I had to make it or I'd snap my neck on the fall down.

Just my luck, my newly lit cigarette dropped below and landed in the grass, this seemed to anger me a little more considering that I don't know where to get anymore once I run out. It's not like I'm going to talk to anyone anymore and god knows where my fake license is, like hell if I'm going home again. Crazy family would trip if I just showed back home to get my fake license.

Yeah, I'm on this search to find my brother and my best, well, ex- best friend, but I am surely not going to be safe running around clean as a whistle without any cigarettes. That's just straight up unsafe.

Finally, I reached the first window and tried to jiggle it about a bit, but unfortunately I must have missed something because my 'wait-for-him-and-look-all-sexy-spy-like' plan failed miserably because next thing I know I'm being pulled through the window and slammed onto the hardwood floor violently.

My head was banged up from the fall and there would at least be a scalp bruise if not a bump.

"Ouch, asshole"

There was a pause then " Charlie?... I thought you were missing. Better yet, what are you doing breaking into my apartment?" A note of unmistakable surprise was ringing through his voice.

Picking me up like a cripple in a swift motion as if I weighed nothing, Sam moved toward a nearby leather E-Z boy and set me down lightly. Once he moved back and took a good look at me I lifted my hand and gave him a shaky salute from my middle finger.

"If you crushed my cigs, you're going down, man"

His bright sarcastic smile and slightly huff showed he wasn't too angry about me breaking in, or at least it looked that way on the surface. Something was off about him. We didn't talk for months, no looks, or suggestions of wanting contact from me. He looked almost,... Happy?

His humorous expression died when he saw the suspicious look on my face follow by the cold words flowing from my lips, " Why are you smiling? I thought 'Sam The Man' didn't smile for anyone?"

Reaching into his coat pocket he removed a pack of cheap menthols and handed me one and offered a light as soon as I placed it between my lips. The whole time he wore a confusing face that seemed sad, yet the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned.

"I missed you.."

Sighing quickly replied fast with narrowed eyes and acid in my voice " Cut it. Where is Cory?"

"Why should I tell you?" This time his face was intense, just like I had always seen it and I had no answer for him. I had nothing to give, or at least I thought that's what I thought.

"What do I have to give you? What do you want?"

In an instant he reached across and stole the cigarette between my lips and took a long drag that seemed to last forever, put the cherry out on his left palm, bent over clearing the distance between us, and then locked lips with me blowing the smoke into my mouth for me to inhale.

After that I could let go of his mouth as his hands went to either side of my head and little tears fell down my face. It took my whole being to pull away from him and once I did I looked into his frozen eyes and whispered, " You're so cold...You've always been cold... Why do you want me?"

" I've always wanted you. I've always wanted all of you," he paused and scanned my whole face as if it were to be the last time he'd see me and added " Just tonight...one last time...and I'll give you everything you need to find Cory...and Warren.:" He said the last part so low I wasn't sure I had heard it

Biting my lower lip, I nodded slowly and gave into the iciness of his arms.


	10. Learn To Loath

Through all of my devastatingly stupid mistakes, I can't help but to feel like this is one of them even if it is supposed to bring me closer to Cory. Yeah, Sam is dead sexy and a hellion in the bedroom, but my god what the hell have I gotten into now? Anyone who's ever met Sam would have noticed the exact same thing I did, he was being . . . more human?

Every action I've ever seen him make was cold and calculated to the last detail, but tonight he definitely gave off a kind of different feeling. With him it's always been raw pure lust shared between us, the rip my clothes off with your teeth kind and afterwards he either left me alone or pushed to the other side of the bed freezing in a literal sense, but tonight was different.

Not only did he say he wanted me, something unheard of from such a detached man, but when he touched me it was like a blind man seeing colors, completely different and it scared me beyond belief. If I was the average dysfunctional person who actually listened their psychiatrist, I would be told that his previous behavior was unhealthy mental abuse and I would need to cut it off with him. Unfortunately I never gave two shits either way.

But now, I'm really debating on what to do in such an odd yet frightening situation. Every situation I can think of is highly bad and will somehow screw me over even more than I already am. This puts me back at blaming myself for my stupidity in even accepting such a situation and letting him in my pants. I feel like such a stupid, stupid whore.

Right now it's a little hard to think considering he's got an iron grip around my waist and has securely pressed my face into his chest, almost suffocating the life out of me. So now I have three options currently available to me.

1.) Concentrate hard enough and put him into a coma, rummage through his belongings and files for information, then steal his car.

2.) Wait until he wakes up to speak to him and probably die of suffocation or fall into some sick trap he's laid.

3.) Wake him up now, have sex again, regroup.

This is definitely turning out to be a harder spot than I thought . . .

Well, actually, maybe I can put him into a deep enough sleep to tie him down to the bed and torture him for any answers... That's not a good idea though, I'm feeling a little queasy right now from sleeping with a possible enemy even though the regrouping idea sounds really nice.

His chest rumbled and vibrated as he spoke, "You're not asleep."

"And apparently you aren't either sunshine. I don't sleep," pausing I turned my head up to look him in the face, "I'd expect you to at least know that if you had any idea about Cory."

This whole time his eyes had been closed, when he opened them he looked down at me with a slight sadness "Can we talk about this in a little while? I'm naked and hungry with you in my bed and even though I know it's highly important to you, this is just not the right time. At least let me have some pants on."

Sighing he pulled the covers up over my shoulders and tangled his legs with mine, causing me to furrow my eyebrows. Questions locked away inside my head were now stabbing at my nerves and begging to be released.

"Why . . . ," my voice stopped slightly and I dryly swallowed despite my cottonmouth, "Why are you acting like this Sam? Don't deny it or try to avoid it. You've always been distant and completely cut off."

For a while I thought he might have seriously fallen asleep in attempts to avoid it, but then I felt him kiss my forehead letting his lips linger there for a while. The silence was getting to me until he replied, "You must understand that you are far more precious and rare to them then you think. Everyone wants to get their grimy hands on you for one reason or another. That's where I come in."

My raw fingers dug into his back and gripped him slightly harder then intended, but he continued with only a glance downward "Originally I was supposed to be watching you and keeping anything really bad from getting a hold of you. As far as we've been concerned there has always been the Gray against whoever thinks they're higher than the other scum out there, but there is someone else who's been doing our work for us lately."

"Listen Charlie, I never chose to be so cruel to you it was strictly orders from above, but after today you need to leave and get the hell out of dodge. I'll arrange to find someone who will take you in away from here. Berlin sounds good? Don't worry. We'll find Cory."

Slowly I unlocked him from around me and sat up turning to face the other wall, "You out of all people should know that I never take orders and I don't let others do my dirty work."


	11. Brain Banging

When you sleep, your sub conscience releases a river of images and thoughts giving you dreams. I've always believed that's all dreams were, a series of chemical reactions affected by everything from stress levels to eating too much before you sleep. For as long as I can remember Warren saw my beliefs in this as bitter. Despite his own moody, violent and chaotic nature he tended to harbor the same belief taught in most religions around the world. Somehow he clung to the idea that dreams interacted with the dreamer's soul, as some kind of riddle to your desires.

This is another reason I feel significantly belittled when around him, because he knows all about my own ordeal yet he cannot seem to be a little sympathetic. Not being able to dream, it makes me feel less human, and I would even accept nightmares with open arms. Anything compared to this constant prison. The only dreaming I've done is washed away in a bottle or alters the effect of reality in a pill shaped form.

For as long as I can remember I've always been one to suck it up and get the job done, but as I beat my hands on my steering wheel violently in the parking lot of the nearby 7-11, my throat lets out a mean ripping scream followed by angry tears. Some people have seen me as incapable of crying due to the hard facade usually worn and it's always pleased me in the past to know that I've played people so well.

Between bangs I'd screech out an obscene sentence "GOD" bang "DAMMIT" bang "AGGGGHH!"

Placing my hands on the dash, my face rested against the steering wheel while violent sobs echoed in the usually silent car. Everything I do ends up in some kind of wreck or new problem. My life has turned into a literal circle of having a problem, trying to fix it, creating new problems and most likely never fixing the original problem or just spreading it to others like HIV.

Parting from Sam was meant to be bitter on my half. Every action was cold, indifferent, and rushed. Leaving quickly with my new sack of goodies, the thick manilla folder awaiting me on his desk, was on the top of my list of things to do. No matter what, he still acted kind even in the slightest ways.

When I brushed my hair in his mirror he leaned against the wall behind me casually, with his lips pressed together firmly and arms crossed, staring at my reflection. It was obvious that he was calculating an action in his head as he followed behind me, still silent, out of the bathroom and toward his office.

His light, bare footsteps echoed and bounced off the walls as he moved around the desk to retrieve my well-deserved information. Handing me the manilla folder he grabbed my hand and looked at my blank, distant face as if there were no one else he'd rather look at and with narrowed eyes I knew I had successfully crushed him. Clearing my throat rather roughly, I removed my clenched fist from his grasp and again we dove into silence only to be broken when he mentioned . . . Warren.

Stopping before the metal door leading to the staircase, I turned to say a final goodbye, but saw pure honesty in his face as he spoke to me in a low, deep voice "He loves you." He stood a little straighter and looked at me intently as he added, "Warren."

Shaking my head from side to side with a 'tsk' noise I replied, "I'm told that a lot these days. Hearing it from his mother, the mega bitch and you Mr. Emotionally Disabled makes the idea rather ludicrous to even consider. Just let me go," taking a deep breath I finished, "I can only hope that he realized by now that he has imprisoned himself with all his insecurities and hatred. If he hasn't he'll never grow up and he'll never be free."

Turning around to face the door he quickly added, "He'd been stopping by the Warehouses frequently since you disappeared, accosting Cleo for information, that mediocre DJ with the speed problem," I nodded, "Well, orders from upstairs have had him rolling around town with false clues. Last night we sent him on his way as usual, but when we told him to get lost he made a scene about it and through a cigarette into one of the guard's face," Sam's eyebrows furrowed and he scratched his head, "About thirty minutes later, he showed up again and left a note downstairs just saying 'Sorry'. Then he left with someone we've never seen, but I feel it's someone bad."

With a sarcastic snort my eyebrows raised in amusement, "And you think he's in trouble or I'm in trouble, right? This is where you're going to tell me I'm too good for him or whatnot, I can see it. "Moving a step closing in his direction, I ground out " And you're something spectacular?"

"It's not . . . I just wanted you to see my favorite part of me and not my ugly side."

My eyes widened, "Oh yes! Stealing lyrics from a copyrighted song is how you really feel. Smooth. Really smooth."

" It's better than having nothing and you know it rings true," he shot back, "If you just stop this madness. Again, I'm begging you, please let us handle it. You'll be safe here with me."

" Ha haha. You're the most challenged person ever aren't you?"

"Why do you seek someone who hurts you?"

"I can trust that he'll do that, but I can't even trust you at all."

"Stay and I'll show you."

This was getting me nowhere and I needed to get out of this place before I suffocated, "Quit wasting my time and go shoot yourself."


	12. Scourge of The World

Silently flipping through the thick manilla file, I sipped on a hot cup of java from a local diner, that I fully intended on paying with money from Sam's wallet I recently stole. Thirty minutes of sifting and most of it was dead end leads or crappy amateur photos taken of family and friends in the passed ten months or so.

Several mini basic profiles on note worthy characters were placed at random throughout the file, unorganized, and I was two ticks of a second close to giving up when a black and white photo caught my eye.

At first glance it would have seemed like any other stupid photo of Sam trying to look sexy on a Harley, but it was the building in the background that caught my attention.

--------

Seven months before I was incapacitated, my research on the Gray began to heat up as I came across a facility in a small town on the coast of Washington state by the name of Joseph Greyherdt's Mental Health Facility. At first it was just a name of one of the many areas where incidents with the Gray had occurred, but inside of me a switch clicked as if I knew there was something waiting for me.

Over the next three months I kept this side research under lock and key as more and more information from various parts of the nation flowed in. That is, until I came across a messenger in her mid-thirties by the name of Trisha Stevens. Originally she was under strict orders from an old ally to wait for me and others in front of an ancient-looking brick antique shop built circa 1900, trade some information and leave, but she was a little antsy in her pantsy while we were waiting and began to talk incessantly.

Annoying me severely, I was going to shut her down verbally like I did to every other paranoid newb, but then she began to ramble about why she was there . . . about Greyherdt's. Apparently in the recent year or so, she had been an RN working in the upper floors of the center. Her whole life she had been working in the medical field and the average pay for a nurse was never as high as the facility offered, so she immediately took the job.

My forehead muscles softened and realized I must have been wearing my anal face, an odd cross between 'Where-the-hell-is-the-thorazine'? and 'I'm-going-to-smother-you'. Slightly bobbing my head up and down, she continued despite my sudden interest in her babble-talk and dismissed it with a short pause.

" The job sounded incredible and I was so excited I packed up my bags and moved all the way from Jersey," she began to explain, "When I got there the place wasn't too bad and the staff seemed fairly nice, but something just didn't seem right about it all. Sometimes I'd be filing papers or handing out meds when this sick feeling would hit me. It's not like the flu or a cold, it was as if something vile was there all around me, breathing on the back of my neck. It was true disgust and fear.

" When I first started working in Greyherdt's it, was an adjustable problem and didn't really bother me since it was only every once in a while. Hell, the pay was good and I didn't have a home in Jersey anymore, so even if I wanted to leave I was shit out of luck," she offered me a cheap menthol and accepted only to show I was truly interested, "I was there only ten months and near the end they were getting worse. Sometimes it felt like I was in a perpetual state of falling, my bodily fluids were always churning and I noticed my constant paranoia about the hospital sky rocketing."

She paused and took a long drag and stared at the ground, her mind floating away to a remote place inside her head. Finally I had to speak up, "Continue."

For a second it appeared as if her eyes had glazed over and all emotion from her face fell as she turned from me to her watch and answered back "Kalheel is never late."

Another few moments passed and she finally looked up, "Maybe we can meet up tomorrow for lunch and discuss this."

Suspiciously I nodded in agreement to both comments. Not only did I need as much help as possible trying to figure out what happened there, but our business partner Kalheel had always been on time no matter what. Always on the dot and a suspect of OCD.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out a matchbook from Marley's Funeral Parlor and searched my person for some sort of writing utensil. When none was found, I looked up in hopes she had one, but before my questioning eyes could meet hers, blood and skull fragments splattered all over me and the surrounding area. After a few moments a feeling akin to being a fish in a barrel washed over me and I gagged a little into my jacket's sleeve.

At the time, I was in minor surprise, but as professionally as possible I bent down to her body, pulled her handkerchief which had been slightly hanging out and wiped my face off. For a second I just stared at her lifeless body, but with a sigh I stuffed the cloth into my own pocket, removed her purse, and used her cell phone to call her employer to remove the body. Luckily we were in a part of town in which cops and citizens disliked each other equally.

Grabbing her skinny ankles, I moved the body to a more shadowed area between the antique shop and a deli where you'd only find her if you're looking, just incase a patrol car dared to enter this neighborhood. That night was the last time I ever had a lead.

------------

In actuality I had never had the true cajones to even attempt driving to Greyherdt's. Not only was it a problem with time or money, but I truthfully was scared shitless at the idea of visiting a mental facility connected to the most underground knowledgeable Illuminati like syndicate.

Despite being intimidated by the thought of walking into the complete unknown, I knew I needed to get there within the next 24 hours. For all I knew Cory could be there, Warren could be there.


	13. Stranger of Intimacy

After a grueling drive through what seemed like every possible climate, minus frozen tundra and jungles, I arrived in a small town an hour away from the disturbing Greyherdt's facility and whatever may be waiting for me. In this rickety hole in the wall, thick forests surrounded everything while a constant rain patted my windshield like a tears from Gaea. No wonder logging was the main source of income for locals, I felt like I was going to drown.

Now that I think about it, I never really caught the name of the town, some toothless old man at a gas station in Cowlitz county just mumbled a bit and drew me crude directions on napkin. It seemed I had ended up in the middle of nowhere checking into a family owned motel bed and breakfast called _Storybook Inn_. The check-in office ran parallel to the motels as a separate wing with the parking lot in the middle. Despite two other occupancies and the kind old woman working the lobby, I felt like I had walked onto a horror movie set alone.

As soon as I came upon the clerk, possibly the owner, I felt she was going to be a little nosey and then she opened her mouth.

"Aww," she started in a crooning voice, "What's a pretty young girl like you doing out here? You visiting relatives? You look familiar."

Not only was I completely exhausted and chilled to the bone by the rain soaked clothing sticking to me, but I had no effing clue who the hell this crazy old woman was. Pretty? I had mascara running, my lips were chapped, and I'm pretty sure my hair looked similar to that of a cat in a bucket. If I didn't have self control I'd have acted like one.

"Sorry, just passing through," my voice croaked out.

Here eyebrows went up at the harshness of my voice, " I swear I've seen your face somewhere." She paused a moment to consider, but snapped back and asked, " Anyways. What can Mrs. Doughty do for you?"

"I need a room for one night with a full," I sighed then added "Possibly with a liquor assortment if you have it and smoking acceptable."

Her surprise was evident when her mouth dropped open. I guess that's a 'no'.

"No alcohol here, but there's a bar down the road if you'd like. I need to see your I.D. to verify you're at least 18 years of age for this room."

Okee dokey chicka.

I handed her the fake I.D. which says I'm Tara Johansen of Idaho who turned 21 as of this year, it usually gets me where I want, but she was a little hesitant.

Before I left town, I bought basic road trip items and took somewhere around four thousand dollars from Sam's bank account. When I say basic items, I mean a suitcase with one change of clothes, a robe, some toiletries, and another backpack with three cartons of Kool's 100's. No, I'm not a chain smoker. It's just a nervous habit to light a cig when I'm stressing. I swear.

As soon as she handed me the key, I said 'Thank You' and quickly went to my van and parked it in front of my room, away from prying eyes. The first hour or two I just sat in a fold out chair staring out the window into the never ending rainy parking lot debating on whether or not to mix with the locals at the bar down the street, but that sounded like it could get nasty.

Instead, I found myself pealing off the soaked garments like a second skin and dropping them on the floor in the bathroom corner. Steam and scolding water called to me as I stepped in. Immediately it began to relax my muscles and for a few moments I forgot everything and was just happy to not be completely on edge.

After I turned the water off the steam lingered temporarily, but as it was vented out and away the cold air reminded me of other things. My temporary piece of happiness was gone, like everything else, so with a deep sigh I stepped out of the now cold shower and slipped my cotton robe on. As soon as I had it tied, I grabbed the door and stepped into the even colder room, but someone else was there.

The fold out chair, now facing the bathroom door, had someone sitting in it waiting for me. That someone was Warren Peace.

"It's not that hard to find you Charlie . . . Or to break in," his deep voice rumbled against the sound of rain.

"Generally I don't care who breaks in, but you on the other hand I'd have to worry about."

He never moved from his position on the chair, but he kept his eyes fixated on me. For once he wasn't in his signature leather jacket instead it was replaced by a thick black front zip hoodie and his was pulled back giving him a more intimidating yet sexy vibe.

He motioned around the room, "I noticed the lack of alcohol and drugs. Someone must be trying to be taken seriously."

That hit a chord, I was about to kill him with my bare hands. With a vile laugh I threw my head back and clapped my hands together, "Bravo! BRAVO! Miles away from the brainwashing crew and you're still riding me even though that was MONTHS ago or did your cold, bitter heart forget that?"

As soon as I finished, he was out of the chair and inches from my face, never before had I seen him move that fast.

He opened his mouth, but I beat him to it. "What?! What do you have to say for yourself?! High and mighty as you are on your stool of stupid. You were the one who left me! You always were," I somehow managed to bring out the venom I felt for his bullshit, "Sometimes you weren't there to begin with."

His reaction was something I didn't expect, he turned around with clenched fists and said "Jesus, woman! If you got any more difficult, I'd have an aneurism!" This was soon followed by a growling noise and him drop kicking the chair, sending it flying into the room's door. That would definitely cost and possibly cause a commotion. He then turned back around and with an incredibly pissed off face grabbed me by my shoulders almost painfully and before I knew it his lips crashed upon mine like waves in a storm.

I had been waiting for him for years. Was I happy though?

No.

Why?

Because somehow I knew, it wasn't him.


	14. Mastering Self Destruction

Dear Readers,

I am sincerely sorry for my lack of updates. This chapter is just a stepping stone for longer more important events to come. It may be short, but soon there will be a slew of longer chapters. Please be aware that this is a very intense story written for more mature readers.

Yours Truly,

!-VR-!

* * *

**Chapter 14:**

_Mastering Self Destruction_

* * *

His lips set me a flame and sent waves of intense burning pain throughout what little pieces of a soul I had, but although every second was agonizing it wasn't because this was a stranger. It was because I've always wanted this, to be kissed as if I was the last meaningful thing in this chaotic war-filled world. This mirror image of the only person who tried in my life was pouring something into me through his mouth that was far greater than any words that could ever exist.

It was almost unbearable to look into his distraught eyes as I pulled away. A different shade of defeat and pain I had never seen before stormed in him, as if there stood the most tortured and beaten man on the planet, but that was partially his downfall. Despite any kind of situation's circumstances Warren _never_ showed his pain, no matter how hurt or upset. He was after all bred into pure rage and dark depression.

This was a truly broken man, but it wasn't the man I needed.

And because of that one sign of defeat it sealed the deal, I needed to leave him especially in one piece. Honestly I would have stayed the night with him and given him every inch of me and my soul, but the hollowness of my heart groaned for one person. This constant ache made me more human than any other part.

I could feel absent tears rolling down my face as I whispered, "Close your eyes."

Soft kisses dotted his jaw line and crept across his neck, up to his cheekbones, and across his eyelids. When I came to his lips, I hovered for a moment and couldn't help, but say one last thing "Dream for me," and as my lips pressed his slightly I sent him off across the river of sleep. His body made a thud as he collapsed backward onto the floor and I quickly and silently re-packed my luggage.

---

It felt as though I had lost already and in a way I did.

Everything was coming full circle life, death, and my own self destruction. I had somewhere to go, but then again I had nowhere. My own mind swallowed actions that showed lack of faith and hope in the world and myself. Giving up is the choice I wanted, to go into the woods of that horrible rainy state and shoot myself in the head.

But why take the easy way out?

After I died, my brother would have most likely followed suit after being tortured and maimed by the faceless psychos that I brought into his life and most of all . . . I would have never found out what Warren really thought. He started becoming a distant light in this perilous journey, dimming into the background of the night.

After leaving the hotel I drove to a gas station and waited, feeling as if my being was dulling, until morning. Time was an issue and I knew it was running out. A new phase was starting and I backed out of the station with a melancholy appearance, but inside I was screaming and yelling in terror to run away. Greyherdt's was calling.

It was time.


	15. Tongues of The Dead

Turning slowly from the dirt road onto the pavement entrace of the facillity, Charlie's eyes began to water slightly. A giantic knot of terror and depression swpet over her mind and hugged her soul with an ultimate crushing force sending ripples of sobs through her lips. This place represented all of her childhood nightmares put to shame. In a place like this everything humans need are broken and smeared in the graves of the on land cemetary. Love, protection, hope, and faith are absent in this hell.

When she parked her car outside the double doored entrace of Greyherdt's, her hands began to shake violently. Opening her pack of Kools she took one out with an unsteady hand and placed it between her cold lips. When she tried to light it, she could barely see and it took five times to calm herself before the flame would hold still. Taking a long drag she noticed the shaking more and quickly opened the door to the car, tossing out the cigarette into the wet grass.

"FUCK!", she yelled with a kick to her car.

Screaming at the building with tears running down her face she screamed, "GODAMMIT! I CAN'T EVEN SMOKE, YOU DIRTY BASTARDS!"

Running up to the doors with fury she defiantly grabbed the door handle and twisted it, but the moment it moved a needle slid out of the middle and pricked her. In moments she was injected with a "mixer", a street name for an injection containing every range of anti-anxiety meds, anti-depressents, pain killers, and a little coke. A poison so powerful her super gene was over ridden and she was practically in a coma.

Her body held itself together in shallow breaths as she clung to life subconsciously in her physical shell. This wasn't her pit of hell or silent darkness, she wasn't trapped in her head. Charlie was on the verge of death, whispering to the Reaper in a silent sweet tongue, recieving her last rights in the language of the dead. Her body craved the eternal touch of gloom and begged for her to finally rest and give up everything. The searchlight of her soul was dimming into the dull throb of her heart wich refused to stop beating in her chest.

When she was hit, her body stumbled slightly down two of the four steps and then collapsed, hitting her skull on the red paint shipped handrail. Blood dripped down her head and neck as the rain began to pick up into a heavy downpour. The doors clicked and opened up as a fammiliar dark creature with skin the color of snow bent down and moved a strand of hair from Charlie's face with a grim grin. Sliding his arms under her he picked her up and turned around, taking her into his playground, burning her soul with his horrifying orange eyes.

---

The distant gentle throb of Charlie's heart, beat rythhmiclly against the powers of nature. Despite being a super, the mixer given to her should have left her dead, but forces beyond her control seemed to wish her alive. When her eyes began to flutter open, she was engulfed in confusion and the smell of stale hospital antibacterial washes and medications. A single flourescent light hovered and growled above her in a flickering electric death, leaving her covered in darkness every few seconds.

Barren white walls bleached for insanity were covered in claw marks that were definatly categorized as human. At first all she could do was breathe in shallow bursts and stare through half lit eyes at the wall to her right as she shivered against the dirty linoleum floor beneath her. Apparently her clothes were missing and were replace with a single hospital gown sloppily tied in the back.

Barely living and laying half naked with complete disorientation, she used whatever strengnth she had to roll all of her body weight over so she was on her stomach. Suddenly her jaw hit the tiles and pain jolted through her mouth hitting her numb mind, filling the right side of her mouth with the metallic flavor. Again, she lay there for what seemed like hours trying to gain some form of strength and finally she raise her wobbly hand and cocked it in a 90 degree angle against the floor.

Determination began to rise from within as she lifted her head to see the open door, but as she tried to summon her power to crawl it wasn't there, just the cold touch of fear. She couldn't even find herself the abillity to curse or cry, and what she would have given to burst into tears at that moment. Pulling the other hand out beneath her she scraped her body against the floor as she began to half-heartedly pull herself to the doorway.

Clawing and pulling her way to the door with everything her being had to offer at that moment, she tried to move her legs but found another hopeless corner. She could feel her thighs and calfs as they slithered with her, but to her dismay they couldn't move. She found that only her feet had any kind of movement skills and with that she slipped and rubbed her skin raw against the floor until she reached the doorframe. Grabbing ahold of the wood frame, she pulled herself up and sat resting for a moment, clearing the sweat from her paled forehead.

Over the intercome she could hear a familliar voice of decay and terror speak, " Aww Charlie, I thought you'd have given up and just died already." He paused and a shuffling sound followed with his next reply, " I just love the reactions I get from your brother. He's just the funnest playmate. Wouldn't you agree Cory?"

The sound of agonizing screams came from the overhead of a tortured child crying, " Plleeeeease! Stop! Please stop."

Her heart was torn and everything became sharp as she felt her stomach begin to churn violently.

The poison in her eyes would have scared the sickest of beings as she replied with a cynical laugh, " I'm coming for you and your little dog too."


	16. Bingo Was His Name

* * *

**Chapter 16: Bingo Was His Name**

* * *

Something in Charlie's head exploded into a million shards as she tilted her head back and laughed cynically to the intercom. Looking around the dimly lit hallway avidly she spotted an old wheelchair twenty feet away and immediately knew that was the best mode of transportation, unless she could get her legs to work anytime soon.

Adrenaline and survival gripped her and sped through every pore as she put both her palms flat on the grimy floor and lifted her lower body over with all her upper strength. It was only a few inches, but it was faster than crawling like a wounded animal and this thought was more than enough to fuel her. She repeated this over and over until her palms were raw and her legs tingled as their skin stretched and rubbed against the floor.

Stopping for a second, she growled and screamed in anger, echoing against the bleak walls. As soon as she reached the chair, she pushed it against the wall so it wouldn't slide away and lifted herself into it with pure rage. Her breaths were deep as she bent her head down resting momentarily and when she looked up a glint of madness had stricken her.

Moving her feet into the rest, she then began to wheel herself faster and faster around corner after corner of what seemed like endless rooms, but she stopped immediately when she came across her savior. Embedded in the wall of a nurses station was the red emergency box containing a fire axe. Maneuvering herself closer to the rounded corner of the station, she grappled onto the edge and pulled herself to lean standing against the counter. If there was a good time to walk, it was now and if she had to force herself against the power of every God that hated her she would.

This fragment of hope surged into the shards of her mind as she slowly struggled to move closer. Grabbing an old metal pen holder, she began to smash the glass with all of her might. The glass cracked and shattered releasing stale air and dust, but she had her last hope.

Gritting her teeth, she reached into the box, slightly cutting her hand, and pulled out the heavy axe throwing it onto the counter. "Now," she thought maniacally, "It's time to play my game."

Through sheer will she began to slowly slide her legs as she balanced herself against the counter. Soon she was able to balance standing and grabbed the handle of the fire axe from the counter and let it slide against through her hand until the blade tinked onto the floor. The intercom came on again, "Oh Charlie, this just makes me want to speed up my playtime with your sweet succulent little brother. I was going to make you watch him die, but now it's becoming plain, obvious you want me to do it sooner."

The metallic screeching of the axe dragging against the linoleum dug through her ears as she successfully ignored his weak comment. "Oh, tsk tsk tsk. Whatever you do to my brother won't come close to what I have planned. Don't you see you've won the battle of my mind, but my body won't stop. It will never stop until I find you."

Glancing around she noticed a camera in the corner behind the desk and snorted, 'Amateur' she thought as she forced her legs to move almost as if they were cement. When she reached the corner she gave it the finger and with all of her strength lifted the axe and smashed it to pieces. Shuffling back slowly to the counter as if she were lithium induced, she grabbed the edge and rested slightly.

Hunching over she let go of the counter and started to use the axe as if it were a cane until she found a set of double doors chained, leading to a staircase. "Bingo," she breathed.


	17. The Hollow

* * *

Chapter 17

The Hollow

* * *

Inside me existed a tasteless, unnamed, disfigured existence that swirled around with bitterness and anger. A completely new being void of love and sanity that only understood how to move through whatever was in its path. It whispered to me through the thin blanket of reality, telling me wonderful yet treacherous things. This thread like being that had woven itself throughout my skin somehow broke free during this reign of chaos with some depthless hunger that craved the darker parts of the world.

I had shut myself inside my own body, letting this seductive terrorizing being take control of my every fiber. Confined to darkness and solitude I watched myself through glassy eyes raise the axe and hit the chained door with more power than I could have ever possessed. It was beyond the power of adrenaline and survival and I had somehow entered a forbidden zone of horrific perportions. Every whack after was accompanied by a "TINK!" and a slight spark until finally the chain gave and broke with an earsplitting metallic screech that shattered the glass windows embedded in the double doors.

Kicking open the doors, my feet silently started forward until the sound of glass crunching beneath me was heard and the soft flesh of my feet were sliced by the broken glass, but somehow I refused to notice. Tiny shards were nestled in my bleeding feet as I continued up the stairs to the second and last level of the hospital where I knew Cory and his frightening captor were hiding.

Hallway after twisting hallway I searched leaving bloody foot prints until finally I came across one that I somehow knew he was in. Dropping the axe at my side, I padded forward with a slight sweat on my brow and a cold alien heart that beat with a crazed determination. I finally stopped in the middle of the hallway and closed my eyes, listening for any kind of movement, but instead I felt a smooth finger graze my neck as the voice of my brother's abductor whispered my name in an eerily cold voice.

Snapping my eyes open, I looked around and saw no one until what seemed like my mind was playing tricks on me happened. There he was, the orange eyed madman who haunted me for so long standing in the middle of the hallway twenty feet away just staring at me. When the lights flickered, he was gone and that's when it started getting mind bending. One moment I would catch a glimpse of him walking into one room and then he'd be walking out of another two doors down. Every time the hanging fluorescent light above failed or twittered he would be in another place.

Because I was in fact completely and utterly mad and in a state of solid insanity, it didn't phase me. Instead I lifted my chin to the ceiling and laughed the most maniacal laugh I had ever heard. Suddenly I went silent, knowing he was watching, and lifted a finger to my throat and made a slicing motion across my neck with a little smile. Then I did something to completely throw him off, something that marked the turn of my mind. Reaching back with one hand I untied the hospital gown and dropped it to the floor standing completely naked in the freezing hallway.

Rolling my head forward I looked to the ground then lifted my chin to see a set of metal doors at the end of the hallway. Slowly, I lifted a foot in front of me with a heavy breath and it felt like I was moving through quick sand for a moment, but as I lifted the other leg forward in a zombie like way the settings around me changed and I was no longer in the hospital. The room had become pitch black minus a single light following a blurry couple dancing around a stone balcony in the snow. As my vision cleared and came into view, I saw that it was me and Cory waltzing, smiling and laughing in silence, but as we twirled playfully he pulled out a single rusty, jagged edged blade and drove it into my lower back. I saw myself shaking violently while blood covered the pale blue dress I had been wearing as he dropped me to the ground with another soundless cynacle laugh like a broken China doll.

Shutting my eyes tightly I shook my head back and forth ripping the image from my mind and storing it away from this moment of hatred. He would not take away my darkness with such a weak image and suddenly I was free from his tortuous illusion, back in the hospital hallway. Tightening my grip around the axe I picked it up and wrapped my other hand around the upper part of the handle. With one quick stride I broke free of the invisible cement around my legs and began to run toward the door passing images in rooms that I knew would horrify me if I stopped.

When I reached the door I kicked it open with my bare feet and walked in with one quick stride as the doors slammed shut behind me. At first it seemed as though no one was there, as if I had come to another frustrating dead end, but then I felt it again. The fingers caressing my neck and back sensually. It was the oddest feeling and I had to shut my eyes momentarily, but when I opened them sitting in the seat in front of me dressed in a black business suit was the autumn eyed freak that I had been searching for.

Then he spoke with a deep sweet voice that overcame my senses as it rumbled off the walls and bounced around in my empty head, "Before you do anything Charlie, I have an offer you can't resist. I will set your brother free in exchange for you." His eyes tore through me like a gust of the strongest wind blowing away all of my memories and current thoughts, somehow he was entrancing me, he was possessing me. "I can give you everything," he continued still captivating me in his harvest moon pools, "I can show you the most marvelous terrible things. Why? Because I know what lurks within your soul, the darkest of all things. I can show you the secrets of your past that you never knew. All you have to do is agree."

Somehow my lips moved and spoke for me in a whimpering, "Yes." The next second he was behind me, his hot breath on my neck as he began the run his long pale skinny fingers up my wrists to my shoulder, then tracing my collarbone. His voice tingled my ear as he spoke, "I found the evil within you that night on the roof top. The never-ending blackness that screams to be released. I will show you the truth." He then lifted a little razor blade from his pocket and moved to my side. With a quick painful motion he slid the razor across my mid fore arm's flesh, then brought his lips down to the blood.

When his flesh connected with mine I dropped the axe to the floor as a flood of images began to flash in my mind's eye like lighting upon a rock. Images of a woman who looked just like me except with bright, fiery green eyes and a tall man with a large smile who worked for the Gray. They were accepting papers from a broad-shouldered man who looked like an angel with perfect skin whose eyes seemed oddly pained. They seemed so familiar, as if they were my real parents. Then I knew, they were my real parents, but how could that be? I had been raised since birth by Sarah and John.

What killed me even more was the man they were standing with, he was the man who had been protecting me. I knew from his strange eyes that were broken and screaming for a release of his inner torture. The loneliest man alive.


	18. Multicolored Pain

* * *

Chapter 18

Multicolored Pain

* * *

The world is full of strange and awkward things, things that frighten children and make grown men's stomachs churn. Where does the line between reality and illusion grow thin? How often do we cross this awful barrier that separates light from that which goes bump in the night? The unexplainable noises in the attics, the voices that call our names when we're not looking, or the strange feeling that we're being watch. Is it really small hallucinations or are we slipping slightly into something far more terrifying? Maybe the people we call crazy are actually sane. They've just found it comforting on the other side.

-----

Roughly, my left hand gripped my knotted hair and scratched my scalp as I felt waves of pain and ecstacy rush over my frail, weak body. This illusionist somehow was warping images in my mind's eye to create some of the most brilliant and spectacular scenes that both excited and tortured me. Scenes of the nameless angel who tried so hard to keep me safe changing from powerful images of brutality toward another human, to him showing compassion at the funeral of my parents as the only person to be present besides the preacher reading the eulogy.

Something of a whisper trail in an evanescent wisp across the corners of my mind trickling softly like rain, "Gabrielle. His name is Gabrielle."

Underneath this veil of silence and horrifying accounts of life and death, a brightness within me was calling out, reaching for me to let go of this creature of the night. It felt as though I was drowning and a hand was desperately searching for me beneath an indigo wave of terror, until I finally began to struggle against it and grabbed ahold of this unseen force. Coming to, I felt a surge of knowing that I hadn't before, that this wasn't right to give into the depths of hellish desires. Immediately my right elbow flew up and contacted with his nose once then twice, so fast I couldn't comprehend.

Now, I could no longer fall captive to his illusions and sweet words that bled disgust masked by an innocent sweet sounding voice. As he slid back clutching his newly remodeled nose I reached to the ground and picked up the fire axed. Walking over to him I laughed slightly as he said, "You could have had everything." With a slight snort I handle butted him in the head and knocked him out cold, but just as I began to move forward my world went black.

Next thing I knew I was clutching a hysterically crying Cory while rocking back and forth in a dark cement room with a single bulb swinging from the ceiling, smeared and drenched in blood. The crimson metallic substance was all over me, sticking in clumps to my hair and slightly dripping from my lips, yet not a drop had touched the room I was in minus a trail of footprints leading to me. For a moment I snapped back to a normal state and let go of Cory backing myself into a corner, staring at my hands. As soon as I did that Cory scuttled beside me and chanted, "The bad man's gone. The bad man is gone."

Staring at me with wide bruised eyes he stopped crying abruptly and begged me, "Make this go away. I know you can." At first I didn't understand, but then I knew. If I could force myself to walk then there was a chance that I could bring my abilities back. Even the slightest bit, just to make him sleep dreamlessly for a few minutes, long enough to get us out of there.

Through all this pain and suffering, I realized then that I had become the real bringer of hope. Not this over publicized fake image that these so called "super heroes" had. I was more powerful in these last few days than I probably ever would be and I was sure to bring one last thing to this situation, I had to.

But then I heard it, the soft footsteps coming from outside the doorway. If I wanted to do this it had to be quick, then I had to be on my feet as fast as possible. Reaching my hand down to his forehead I brushed back his untamed curls in a comforting motion and kissed the top of his head. Brushing his hard back again I pushed all of my power into him and concentrated, at first nothing happened, but then he went limp in my arms and his breath became shallow.

Standing I was ready for whatever was coming, but then I saw him. The angel I had dreamt about and right when I took a step forward I felt my own body grow numb and become weak. It was as if I was being sucked into an endless pit, but his name escaped my lips before I fell to the ground, "Gabrielle."


	19. The Madness In The Machine

* * *

**Chapter 19:**

**The Madness In The Machine**

* * *

For everyone in the world death is a very hard thing to grasp no matter if they've died and been resurrected by the hand of God himself, it is something that is unattainable to the human mind. Even if some are invincible, death is still the everlasting blanket of snow over the soul and our fragile human shells can only handle so much. Our minds are the pulsating processor to the world around and once we ascend to a higher understanding of it, we still are completely ignorant. There is a pain that weakens me every second of every moment, it makes my bones quiver and is saturated into my heart. This pain is something so real it overcomes every emotion or thought and breaks me down on a constant basis.

I can never be a hostage to myself again, because I've found something beyond myself in the darkest, dankest pit of my soul. It's a part of me that has always been there, abiding by the rules and waiting until it could be unleashed into the world. It's the darkness of humanity that resides there and ever since that night I've been immersed in silence hoping to keep the tides of it's suffering away from the world. That was three months ago, the night that ripped the world in two and stole everything away.

When I awoke I was in four point restraints in a hospital bed two weeks later in Maxville, hooked up to numerous tubes and beeping machines that sent shockwaves of high pitched sounds which reverberated in my ears as if I were a dog responding to a whistle. Later it came to my attention that when I was admitted I was in a coma like state and yet at random points in time I would start screaming and flailing violently as if I were fighting off some imaginary attacker. Warren was the one who admitted me, along with my brother Cory. Unlike me, he never woke up and he never will.

It was explained to me by specialist Dr. Frieda, and fellow super, that I had exerted a mass amount of energy from my sleeping ability. Everything that was in me was put into him. She explained that my body was in a fight or flight mode with extremely high amounts of adrenaline, it was as if my body had been on low volume and some one had just attached a sub-woofer with the volume now on high. She also said I would never be able to use it again and I was lucky I didn't kill us both. She tried to use the fact that I could now sleep as an upside, but when someone I love is in a condition like that it's a little hard to see it that way. Now my brother sleeps, away from all of the nightmares in a blank, hollow part of his mind completely unresponsive skimming the breath of being dead.

Everyone expects that just because something like this has happened that it's actions would ripple and change the world around me forever. In a way it has, it left me with more scars and reminders of reality than anything ever will, teaching me the darkest lessons I have learned yet. Because of it I see the world in a different shade, I see it in gray, but they all think it would have changed me for the good. That I had taken down the bad guy and rescued my brother in the name of justice and security. What kind of sick shit is that?

I've been examined over and over again, prescribed bottles of sedatives and anti-anxiety pills, and sent on my way. The doctors took my vow of silence as a key to "my own recovery in a long journey of self-anguish and growth". In all honesty, the doctors that I've been seeing are paid off by the Gray. It's obvious by their reactions and the way they move that it was their orders from above to keep me in my own head. As if pilling me out and keeping me stoned on a constant basis is going to keep me shut up forever. I've always kept myself caged by my own secrets and disabilities, but now I'm being forced to do something I already had planned and mastered.

On my return I was praised by people in the super community and Principle Powers gave me lenience on my school academia by stamping this whole thing as "field work" and experience for my future life in the world of heroes and villains. It was kind of like a college board loop hole for roommates of a suicide though, straight A's in my courses. Most would see that as a plus, but I see it as a pity bargain because she knew the gruesome details of the situation.

Although I'm still readjusting to this so called "normal" life, I take it into myself to drag my disoriented self into Cory's room every night and just stay with him until I'm either forced out by nurses or the morning light breaks into his window. My clothes wreak of a sanitated hospital and cigarettes.

Even though I've always thought of Gabriel as my savior, the fact that Warren brought me in has stayed in my mind. I don't know how he found us or why he never gave up, but it's something I just can't seem to forget. We've only spoken once since my recovery and his voice still lingers at the back of my head. It was late one night at the hospital and I was dazing in and out as the light sound of beeping and Letterman buzzed behind my eyelids when I heard his all too familiar voice down the hallway asking a nurse if he could come in. When she informed him that someone was already present in the room, he grumbled a "Thank you", and went to leave. Immediately I sat up and ran out of the room hoping to catch him as he briskly walked toward the elevator.

Right as he pressed the downward button to summon the elevator, I called out to him " Wait!". He turned and looked at me with an equally troubled and exhausted face. One that seemed almost unfamiliar to me, as if he had spent a lifetime of bleeding and crossing seas of fire and brimstone since we had last seen each other. His eyes no longer held that playful glee, they looked barren and worn as if he had never stopped fighting the world.

My mouth opened "Warren," I paused briefly looking down at the dirty linoleum floor, "I don't know what to say."

Rubbing his hands over his face, the door tinged and opened, but right before he left he replied to me with pleading eyes "You're not ready yet." And then he left me, again.

This made me realize how completely and utterly selfish I've always been. How his mother was right and now I'm more alone than ever. Before I at least felt the eery feeling of someone watching me, but now it's as if I've been left to my own devices of self-decay with graphic dreams of mutilations and horrific tortures. I would give anything to be a sheep, a cattle in this dangerous game of endless pain.

Now, I sit here masking my strife with Vodka and pills completely broken and cut off from those surrounding me in the dark lit classroom of Sky High as I constrict my uneven thoughts into a bundled mess. I will never recover. I will never give in. I will fight back.


	20. Grieving Silence

* * *

**Chapter 20**

**Grieving Silence**

* * *

Ever since I was granted the gift of long days and sleepless nights I had prayed for sleep, begged the powers that be to give me empty thoughts and an endless black. To just grant me an escape, but now I lay alone in the darkness of my room raw, exposed and naked as unforgiving sobs wracked my body and rivers of tears made their way down the cheeks on my partially blank face. Shaking back and forth I repeated over and over in a heartbroken chant, "Please forgive me."

Instead of the great darkness of sleep, I'm haunted by my own demons and extreme nightmares of myself doing everything unthinkable. The perpetrators of the horrifying images that were placed in my head were replaced by me, but that's not what kills me. Contorted screams followed by the stomach churning sound of what is assumed to be gurgling laughter as if some one had their throat slit and were attempting amusement while blood filled their vocal chords and blurred visions of myself smeared with blood. Sometimes the sounds are accompanied by flashes of the wild eyed maniac withering on the ground as his detached limps lie beside him. It forced me to face that maybe I really am the monster that is buried inside.

Momentarily I stared at the Lithium prescription surrounded by other various other new medications across the room on my desk. Sitting up all of a sudden I wiped my eyes harshly, irritating my skin and snatched the bottle as I quickly dressed, throwing on some old pants and a baggy shirt before throwing a glance at the clock and grabbing the keys off my nightstand. It was around four in the morning and I was on complete overload with the feeling of dread and repulsion of myself, making my head swirl and flipping my insides. When I entered the old van which had somehow been retrieved during my stay in the hospital, my mind was absent from where I was and I didn't have any clue of where I was going I just needed to leave and release myself before I imploded. I've had everything ripped quite violently from me my life, my family, and now my mind is collapsing.

As I began driving down the road at a snails pace, I reached into the center console and retrieve a silver zippo and an almost empty pack of Kools. Placing a cig into my mouth I lit it successfully with a shaking, uncoordinated hand and inhaled until my blackened lungs were going to burst. Relaxing slightly, I gripped the stearing wheel as my dead head was left blank and made a right turn onto a familliar street. Not knowing what possessed me, or if I was on autopilot, I had found myself at Warren's house.

My van was parked a house down on the curb as I just stared at the darkened window of the second floor which belong to him. Looking down at the passenger seat where I had thrown the prescription I grabbed it and stared at the label before opening it up and swallowing two dryly. Turning off the car, my wobbly legs moved me to the side of his house right below his window. Placing a hand on the wall I attempted to crawl up the side and succeeded much to my surprise as I made it up to the side of his window. Placing my hand beneath the metal sill, I pushed as hard as I could assuming it was open. Pop! It was.

Waiting a second, I listened for movement only to hear a groan and him move in his bed, then I proceeded to push it open all the way until I was able to crawl in. As soon as I was standing I turned to see him directly in front of me peering out through the dim lit room with those once intense fire filled orbs that had now been replaced with tired, worn eyes. I don't know how long we stood staring at each other, but I was rendered speechless and he understood me completely. My legs felt as if I were a fish swimming through water effortlessly as I took two large steps towards him almost filling the distance. There were mere inches between us as he stared intently at me with a blank face as if I were supposed to speak first.

But I knew I didn't have to. Again, there were the dreaded drops forming in my eyes that soon turning into obvious tears puddling out across my face and my legs couldn't handle the weight of my body as if I were suddenly made of lead. Falling to my knees, I sat in front of him in the most unguarded way I ever have. Warren had never really seen me cry, let alone break down. He was always the rock, the boulder, my shield. Now I was the most defenseless he'd ever seen me. It was unknown to me how he'd handle it, but instead of using words he just bent down and picked me up and lay me down on his bed.

After removing my shoes he pulled the covers on me and crawled in, wrapping his arms around me as I rested my face against his chest and gripped the side of his shirt with one hand. After all the years of me holding him when he was in need, it was my turn.


	21. Paradise In Pain

* * *

**Chapter 21 **

**A Paradise In Pain**

* * *

Through the darkness that wreaked his room, the sound of my heart-wrenching sobs echoing into the night turned into dull painful whimpers as he held me to his body cradling me ever so lightly. The lithium's grasp on my over exhausted mind and drained body flooded me with serenity and the frank feeling of not giving a fuck. It's heaviness filled my limbs and relaxed my muscles as my ragged breathing slowly began to even it's way out and my heavy half-lit eyes began to in their way closed, but before I gave in I knew I there was one thing to be done.

Stretching upward as far as I could, I gently placed a kiss ever so softly on his forehead letting my lips linger on his warm skin before forcing a pained "Thank you" out of my raw throat and returning to my position against his chest. In reply his hand moved to my hair and calmly he stroked the knotted, rats nest of a sleep deprived, utter and total mess of a girl until I was finally pulled into the arena of serene pitch and comfort. I had finally gotten what I begged for.

--

Staring at the alarm clock across the empty space where Warren had once occupied I slowly began to rise out of my over due slumber, the clock read around 6:30 at night and the curtains were closed shielding any light. I honestly laid there completely uncaring, staring blankly at the wall, for what was a small eternity to some. Outside of the room I heard almost nothing, excluding some television downstairs

loudly playing some soap opera and I did not want to deal with Mrs. Peace, who no doubtedly knew I was there. Rising from the warmth and comfortable bed, I began searching through Warren's things for at least some boxers and a tank. Successfully finding a grey tank and a grey cotton pair of boxers, I opened his door and peaked down the hallway to see if anyone was there and carefully slinked into the bathroom across the hall.

After a long, steaming shower I slipped into the tank and boxers and quickly towel dried my hair. As I opened the door, my feet immediatly lead me straight back to the bedroom. I didn't care if I waited all night, I would wait for Warren. In some weird way, I was feeling greedy, I had never had any real part of Warren and I would give anything to just be with him. Even if we would never go beyond this point, I will always want him.

Pondering this vigorously, I opened his bedroom door and walked right past him sitting on the bed as I stared at the floor biting my knuckle absentmindedly and dropped the towel and my clothes into his hamper. Sighing, I looked up and jumped slightly at his presence. Looking away, I mumbled "Excuse me." or what was supposed to sound like it but just sounded like a muffled grunt.

At first I didn't want to look up, but I knew it was inevitable, being stuck in a slightly awkward situation isn't uncommon for me and just standing there like an idiot as his eyes bore into me put a clench on my throat and the feeling of asphyxiation forced my eyes upward. In the instant that I faced him I took in his appearance and saw how completely _frail_ he actually looked. It was as if time had worked it's magic of a decade into his face, with tired eyes and miles of disappointment and pain embedded into his demeanor.

Again I was the first to move, as if he had been waiting for me for centuries in a hollow pit and I was his light, I walked forward cautiosly. As soon as I finished my stride, he stood and towered over me with an unwavering stare. My mouth began to open, despite not knowing what to say, and he immediately put his fingers above my lips silencing me. "Don't say anything," he whispered although it rumbled through his chest as his fingers slid over my cheek bone and brush the hollow of my face before stopping at the side of my neck beneath my ear, holding my head to face his.

And then it happened, the spark that had always been there erupted into a glorious geyser of flame and ash as if together we existed as one bright burning star giving life to everything and opening me up from the inside. When our lips connected, it wasn't rough like the crashing of waves in a storm, but light and spreading a deliciously warm blanket throughout my core. It was as if every ounce of me was connected to him and vice versa. The never ending pain in ourselves was at rest as we found an oasis of hope in each other's souls.

The absence of fluid for tears dryly stung my eyes as I slid my arms around him and moved from his mouth spreading a trail of kisses down face and neck. Sliding his hands down my sides he suddenly reached down and ,placing both hands on the cups of my butt, picked me up. Wrapping my legs around him, he turned around and lay me on the bed. Pulling his shirt off quickly, he through it carelessly onto the floor and leaned down, hovering over me for a moment. A slight look of question crossed his eyes and I immediately killed it, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

Bringing my lips to his ear I breathed into the dim lit room and into his heart something so true and unbreakable, not pure and light, but a certaintly obtained by blood shed and endless suffering, "I will never let you go."

**An Excerpt From : **

_Annabelle Lee_ _**By Edgar Allan Poe**_

"It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love -

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me..."


	22. The Perils of Forgiveness

* * *

**Chapter 22**

**The Perils of Forgiveness**

* * *

I thought the dreams would recede, at least for this one night, as I thought I had found what I needed but instead they were replaced with vibrant images of whole cities burning to the ground that I had never seen before and moments of time that I had never experienced. Cries of agony and war filled my ears and the taste of sweet crimson copper filled my mouth. This was my destruction, but instead of being horrified I felt the urge to scream into the burning night in joy at my victory for demolishing the lives of my enemies and obliterating their homes. I was a goddess of pain and hate as I felt the adrenaline from centuries past climb through my numb body as if I were a lifeless doll being pumped with fiery blood.

This was my true domain, the endless screeches of terror into the smoldering city rang through my ears like a beautiful symphony of catastrophe as I relished in conquering my weak enemy with a slightly sick, twisted smile playing across my lips as my face was filled with utter delight at their misfortune. My mind began to loose it's grasp on these events as the scene started to blur as if I were no longer looking through my eyes, and as it began to fade into the oblivion of darkness melodic voices laughed maniacally, speaking in unknown tongues. Their voices were like fireworks that shot out of the pitch to overlap and fade, dancing through my thoughts in different tones and volumes until finally a recognizable verse in the background continued in repetition, getting louder and louder until it was the only voice that existed, ending it's reign with a blood curdling shriek that could have made my ears bleed "WAKE UP CHARLIE!"

--

I was drenched in a cold sweat as my naked flesh was sticky with humidity and my bright eyes flipped open with unwavering fear flickering intensely within them, causing my whole body to slightly vibrate as it was locked in with shock. It took me quite some time, but I was able to concentrate on the blank ceiling above me. Staring intently at the randomized speckles that dotted the eggshell white plain hanging above me, I zenned myself out in an attempt to calm my breathing and settle my shaking body enough to realise there was an arm draped lazily over my abdomen. Picking the arm off of me slowly, I narrowly escaped his sleeping form from waking up as I quickly through on the boxers and tank from the night before.

Padding over to his still figure silently, my lips gently brushed his forehead before I grabbed my keys and a clunky pair of Warren's old beach flip flops from the open closet. Slipping out of the door, I noticed the sun was just rising through his window and knew his mother was only possibly awake. Without hesitating, I swiftly treaded down the stairs bare foot and out the front door, as soon as I closed the door I slipped the 'too large for me' sandals on and sprinted to my car. Once I was seated in the tank, I grabbed the lithium and dryly took another dose while rummaging through the center console and glove compartment for a new pack of cigs. Although I found three torch zippos and my wallet containing the fake I.D and a few bills I realised there were none, so I turned the key and the old beast fired up roaring into the still morning.

On my way through the silent streets to the corner store, where chirps and caws called out from there resting places as leaves bickered in slight wind, I slowed to a crawl as the image of St. Theresa's Cathedral with it's high towers and ancient stained glass windows depicting saints and angels blossomed into my eyes fully. An aching filled my joints while my heart strings felt a tug and as if there were muffled cry behind a thick satin curtain from the Paris Opera House, a distant phantom of need appeared and dragged me to park my car and enter the large mahogany doors that had seen ever color of pain.

It was dark, sly for a few flickering candles burning at the prayer alter that release minimal glow and two large hanging chandeliers glowing dimly. Although the morning's light began to slip it's way into the elaborate windows, all was quiet and as my silent footsteps grew closer to the front a heaviness came over me like thick tar sliding, and covering my insides with black mess. I got as close the front as I could and kneeled down in the first aisle clasping my hands until my knuckles were white and I was loosing feeling, then the tears came not the ugly ones that I usually had, but soft tears that left salted watery pathways down my face and off my nose and chin.

Somewhere inside of me I felt that I should be begging for mercy and forgiveness, but I had no idea why. Just this horrible bullet wound in my soul that had been stitched up without removing the bullet. Unbeknown to me, a lone figure had slid in behind me with dark watching eyes to witness my pitiful act of prayer. His voice rang out clearly with elegance and without an echoe off the strange walls as he stared at the large Crucifixion hanging before him " Forgiveness," he started pausing to put together his words, "is a priceless gift. Almost unattainable for some."

Looking up with wide bloodshot eyes, I saw an angel, as beautiful as a thousand sunsets in paradise and eyes fiercer than the violent seas rising and crashing together as light in the sky illuminates it's darkness. Remnants of tear pathways dried in the cold, stale air leaving salted snakes across my cheekbones that tingled and burned slightly as my heart slowed the pumping of my blood and a fire within the aching darkness of my being shed a tear of faint light. Earlier my knees felt as if they were going to buckle, but somehow I retrieved myself from the kneeling position and stood straight, confident of myself looking into his face.

The faint light within me hummed with a familiarity for him, although I knew little of who he was from my travels, I felt myself lifting one hand steadily towards his face urging myself to remember. Every piece of matter that made up the existence that is me screamed as if I had known everything about this man for centuries, but before my fingers could touch his face he gently grabbed my hand and turned completely toward me. The words trickled out of my lips like light rain on a window sill in spring, hiding a sensitivity and pain that was unknown to me, " Are you...Gabriel?"

His eyes never touched mine as he continued to look down, but cautiously he loosened the grip on my hand and gently placed my palm on the hollow of his cheek. The lids of my eyes were tightly closed as I felt something from the darkness calling out, clawing it's way to the surface from this familiar touch, but with everything I had I resisted it's pain and temptation and ripped my hand away backing away slowly. His eyes stared directly through me, penetrating my defences and stopping me in my tracks to search within me as he began to speak again, "I've waited a long time for you."

I bit my lip slightly and replied softly into my breath exhaling the question as if it sucked the wind out of me, "How long is that?" My eyes searched his face eagerly as the corner of his mouth twitched upward almost in a humorous way, but disappeared as fast as I saw it.

"Sit," he commanded delicately and my legs crumbled beneath me as I dropped into the pew a few feet in from of him and stared with slightly wide eyes at his presence. He looked down at himself and straightened the black suit he was wearing, smoothing the nonexistent creases or lint off the bottom of the jacket and pants before readjusting his crisp white tie that stood out against his suit. His shoes clicked against the stone floor as he placed himself beside me and silently returned to staring at the Crucifixion as my eyes rested on him patiently in the thick silence between us.

" I first met you in Babylon, a couple millenia ago, as one of the leaders burning it to the ground and I have followed your ghost across the ages," I could almost hear his heart breaking as he appeared to stop breathing momentarily, " I imagined you in every age, wherever I went, seeing a whisper of you in a market in Rome or on a boat in Paris. Always a memory, never tangible, something existing only to be just out of my reach."

"I have walked the sands of time and bled on every shore of every continent seeking solace from myself and forgiveness from God dying over and over again just to be reborn with the same face and memories as before. I am a statue of time, a crumbling mind within a shell that will never find peace," his voice smoothed over every bit of tension as he spoke although his words were in some way painful to hear. Standing abruptly, he reached into his inner pocket and retrieved an envelope, setting it in his place. Clearing his throat he continued, " Congratulations, they were impressed with your work in Washington."

His other hand had been holding something with a vice grip until his knuckles were white and as he turned his back he released the object from his grasp onto the pew beside the envelope and disappeared as quickly and silently as he appeared. Looking down, I recognised what it was, it was the ring on the chain that Warren had left me as a clue a few months prior. My fingers reached out to the cool metal and I automatically unclasped it and placed it around my neck before picking up the sharp edged envelope addressed to no one. As I held it curiously, almost not daring to open it, my eyes wandered to the same place his were just moments before at the wooden depiction of Jesus with his face contorted in agony while he hung from the cross.

"What the hell just happened?"


	23. Born Into Water

I felt a bleakness withing me covered in the tar and chemicals I inhaled from my half smoked cigarette, that slid through my body like a boiling serpent that settled dripping off my heart and into the emptiness of the pit of my stomach. The clockwork of my being has slowly been deteriorating and rusting with time as I take in every detail of every minute of every day, feeling as though I've aged ten years for every one I've been alive. The stale smell of new mixed with old smoke and home that emitted from the interior of my van gave a slight comfort as I stared at the inside roof of the vehicle from the flat of my back on the slightly dirty floor clutching an old jacket of Cory's that I had given him for Christmas as the cigarette dangled between my lips and the white envelope, still unopened, called to me.

Rolling over to one side, I mashed the remains out into a blue plastic ashtray I had bought in Washington that showed a picturesque view of a mountain surrounded by thick, green forests with big black words say "Washington, no place other." My knuckles whitened as I gripped Cory's jacket and had an urge to throw the ashtray out the window into the humid streets still drying in the fatal sun from a late afternoon shower. I had been laying in like this since I left the cathedral, but before I left was stopped by a priest who inquired about my attire as I was heading out the door.

_"Excuse me, miss. Might I ask you about your wardrobe. This is a church and all you seem to be wearing is men's underwear."_

_My head turned slightly and the corner of my mouth turned up as I replied softly, "You out of all people, father, should know that when faith is needed in an urgent situation what you wear isn't an issue."_

All he did was nod and told me to wait for a moment as he excused himself. For reasons unknown to me, I actually waited and when he returned he was carrying an old brown leather aviator jacket. Although I feel like accepting it from the priest was similar to making a deal with the devil, it has nothing to do with morals, just the guilt of having someone look at you with that mist of pity behind their eyes. In actuality, I think I'd rather sell my soul than have someone look at me with that kind of pity.

After loading up on death sticks, I turned off the car in the parking lot of a Jordanian pastry shop downtown and for the past nine hours and twenty-seven minutes I have layed in a slightly dormant state going from staring at the ceiling to boring holes into the crisp envelope. Reaching over, my hands shaking slightly, I picked it up taking in the almost course feeling of the paper as if it were old parchment and slid a finger underneath the seal finally breaking it as I sucked in a large breath between my teeth.

There was a simple piece of paper with a thin layer of plastic covering what looked like a Listerine strip and the words " Place on tongue". Wow, I haven't accepted foreign substances from shady people spouting questionable things in a long time. Peeling off the plastic, I picked up the blue strip and stared at it momentarily, hesitating before placing it on my tongue.Within moments it dissolved leaving a bittersweet taste in my mouth akin to eating unripened wild berries and I silently laid as still as possible waiting for it to come to me and when it did I wasn't sure if I was ready. Alice didn't have shit on me as my world fell and faded as the death of a star, first blindingly bright then darkness, as I danced in the ashes of nothing and was pulled into a deep trance like coma.

--

Somehow it had taken me beyond the beyond, through ancient corridors of my mind and into the endless abyss, crashing into to me at full speed and never stopping with a constant flow of images and voice. My senses in this place were unbelievably heightened as one moment I was running through a moonlit poppy field in bloom releasing fragrant multicolored pollen chasing a silhouette of my brother under a sheet of stars that sang in beautiful unison like angel's weeping, giggling merrily as if this were a game of hide and seek or tag. His familiar voice that I had longed to hear echoed as we had come to a stone labyrinth with high dirty walls that hung ominously, " Charlie, come on. Just a little faster, we're almost there." I felt as though I was some kind of experimental rat clawing through this endless maze in the dark looking for the cheese at the center.

My charcoal lungs heaved in disapproval and the muscles in my legs slowed like sand bags against my will as if a puppet master was behind a curtain deciding my fate and then I stopped, the sound of his footsteps diminishing into the blackness until their was only silence that replaced the song of the night with a grief that trickled like rain on my ears. Gripping my knees, I fought for breath concentrating at the ground which seemed to be the only thing not completely out of reach, when the sound of crumbling stone and twisting wood exploded in front of me revealing a door.

I honestly didn't want to enter it, I wanted to catch my breath and keep running, keep trying to find him in the darkness even if he was a dream far off. Then as this idea planted itself in my mind a voice boomed from all around me, surrounding me totally and vibrating my body with every powerful word " You have to give up before you can see."

" I can't give up. I've come too far to just quit," I screamed back at the omniscient voice feeling the guilt and hatred for myself bleed into my blood stream like a poison and so I ran. Despite knowing Cory would be a hallucination, he was something I needed to obtain not only to see his smile again but for my own selfish reasons of forgiveness. Fighting the imaginary exhaustion and deep rooted pain ripping at my blackened lungs, my legs felt as though they were doused with carosine, set afire. And I was a burning woman screaming and screeching through the bold night like an Amazonian warrior goddess searching, but always coming to another stone wall.

Then, after hours of fleeing the voice rang out again " Accept your fate."

As I found myself at another dead end, I threw up my fists and began angerly banging them against the stone wall as my eyes welled up and tears flooded my furious face in an angry defeat. After a few seconds, the door appeared again a tall cedar spectacle intricately crafted with millions of symbols wrapped in vines shredding through the stone. Clenching my fists, I got up and brushed the dirt I acquired from the ground off of me and stood seething in front of it with burning cheeks and dry eyes before my hand mechanically reached out and my fingers tightly wrapped around the brass handle.

This wasn't a test, it was a forceful push into what was real. Everyone kept topping the world off with sugar for, but it was true. It was my fault where Cory was and nothing, no matter what, was going to bring him back. It WAS my fault that he was kidnapped and tortured as it was my fault that he was in a coma. Pity, grief, and shame were no luxury that I could afford. I would have to bare these marks forever.

Opening that door, meant so much more than I could have ever comprehended before I did that simple little action of turning the handle. Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and gained what she shouldn't have, despite the warnings, temptation was her down fall as they say. I say it was stupidity and the bitch cursed us all.

Walking through the doorway I entered a familiar place that I had never been before, a slightly barbaric war tent made of painted animal hides and intricately woven strips of cloth. It appeared that I was a ghost on the background of memory, a flash in the movie, the cigarette burn in the corner of the screen when reels are switched that is there but no one notices. The smell of dirt, blood, and smoke filled my nostrils and made my head ache as I slowly stepped forward and out of the tent into the screaming world. It was my dream, the burning city of...Babylon.

Every inch of me locked up and this world seemed to freeze as I stared into my own eyes burning with ferociousness and passion that could pierce the soul like a darkened blade. The same eyes, the same face, everything only her hair was a long braided stream and what looked like a tribal tattoo of small symbols scrawled across her cheek bone under her left eye in a line. But I knew what it meant, they were symbols of the ancients only given to those of higher authority, each symbol had a different meaning, but those were more than just markings of authority. It slowly came back to me as the foggy thoughts rose into my head. They marked her as a leader, warrior, and showed she had a spiritual connection to something higher in nature, something dark. Her skin was smeared with dirt and sweat with blood matted into her mane and splattered across her body, dripping from the blade she carried in her hand.

And then she passed right through me into the tent, as if I weren't real. My body was still in shock, my eyes fixed into the smoldering night. When I regained myself I turned into the tent where she, I, was washing the dirt off of my face and body. I could feel her exhaustion, but then I understood why I came here as soon as she stood. From chaos outside came in a familiar face from the back of the tent that sent electricity through my veins, Gabrielle.

They collided still covered in blood, tangling themselves in eachother's beings, connected as one burning violent storm growling like lions in the wild. They were the same ink in a pen writing a ballad of eternity. The energy they emitted rolled off of them in waves and suddenly I was her, feeling how we worshiped eachother's every particle. Death wasn't an end for us.

And then, I was pulled from this untamed world painfully as if I had been taken apart and forced piece by piece on an atomic level through the eye of a needle into a plane where there senses didn't exist. I couldn't hear, see, smell, taste, or touch until the same voice vibrated through me, " You must remember for the sake of everyone. At 4:18 pm on Thursday, you will required to be at South York station. Everything will fall into place from there. We need you."

In one swift painful burst my eyes opened up and I was gasping for breath in the back of my van again, as if I had been held under water. A slight drip came from my nose and a spot of blood fell onto Cory's shirt. I'm just hoping there was no permanent brain damage involved in that.


End file.
